I don't own Harry Potter. I don't really think anyone can say that they own him since he is a great wizard not a poor houseelf. Of course thanks to SPEW houselves have a better life these days too. Actually I don't own any houseelves either. Nor any other creatures from the HP universe.
Thanks for the review to Lost O'Fallon Girl!
Goodbyes and toads
"Are you ready Hermi?" yelled Robert.
"I'm coming in a minute!" Hermione yelled back staring at her trunk willing herself to move. The trunk was quite small thanks to a handy spell she found in a book titled "Charmingly Easy Charms", that she checked out from her favorite library. It made the trunk bigger on the inside but if someone looked at it, it seemed normal from the outside. It also made all her stuff really lightweight. She actually thought about using the spell on her reticule, and not taking a trunk at all but she didn't want to scare her parents. After a few days she had to realize that they needed some time to get used to the idea of magic even if they fully supported her and accepted her being a witch. She fought the appearing tears. She would be alone far from her parents for most of the school year.
No time to panic. She thought angrily. She picked up the List of Library books from her bed and put it in her trunk. It was shortly followed by Hogwarts, a History which she was reading for the fifth time and mostly knew it by heart.
She looked around for one last time. On her desk were her muggle textbooks abandoned. She was pretty sure she would never need them again. She walked to her bookshelves which covered most of the wall above her bed and were mostly empty. She couldn't leave behind her books, not after she found that spell so that everything can fit in her trunk. She opened her closet. A few dresses were hanging there. She picked out the small red one with white dots. She loved that one so much that she never got rid of it although it hadn't fit for at least two years. She put it back closed her trunk and walked out of her room. As she was closing the room she saw her old teddy bear on her bed. That was all it take. Tears overflowing she run back grabbed her teddy bear and hugged it to herself.
"Hermione, what's wrong?" asked her mum quietly.
"I'm scared." She muttered.
"You don't have to go you know." said Helen "We don't mind if you don't go to a wizarding school. Mr Snape said that it's your choice."
"He also said I would waste my talent…"
"It's not so important, Hermione. You've always taken your studies too seriously. All I want for you is to be happy. If you think you would be happier in your previous school, you can stay."
"It's not about the school, mum. The school is wonderful! I've read so many great things about it. It's just… I'm going to miss you so much!"
"We are going to miss you terribly, Hermione, but we are sure that Hogwarts is where you belong. We know you weren't really happy here." said Robert who had been standing at the door for a while quietly.
"Thank you." said Hermione with a slight smile on her face "Let's go. I don't want to miss the train."
She walked out of her room, grabbed her trunk again and didn't look back until she was in the car. The familiar house slowly disappeared from view. They didn't speak much during the ride. Everyone was occupied with their own thoughts.
"I love you mum" she whispered hugging her mum.
"Me too, Hermi. Just be careful! And try to send some letters."
"I will, promise" she said and went to hug her father too.
"Take care, Hermi. Just be yourself like always and everything is going to be fine." said Robert forcing a smile.
"Don't worry, dad. I'll be fine."
"I know, I just want you to be better than fine." he said still smiling "Now, hurry up! Let's see if you can really go through that wall."
Hermione looked at the solid brick wall. Even with all the spells she managed to learn during the last month she found it hard to believe that she can go right through a solid wall. She grabbed her trunk and started to hurry in the direction of the wall. She was nearly running. She glanced at her parents one more time and for half a second she wished that she would just run right into the wall because of course magic didn't exist and everything would be back to normal… and then she was standing at a platform full of people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven O'clock and a scarlet steam engine was waiting next to the platform. She slowly passed through the crowd in the direction of the train. Some of the people were wearing robes while others dressed normally. He even saw a small black haired boy looking out from one of the windows of the train wearing clothes that were clearly big on him. She caught sentences from different conversations as walking.
"Look at my new owl, isn't he cute? I haven't decided what to name him yet."
"Yeah, the new Nimbus 2000! I saw one in Diagon alley." said a tall boy with sunglasses.
"Take care and don't worry. It's ok if you are not in Hufflepuff!"
"Lee Jordan, leave my cat alone or I'm going to report you to McGonagall! I'm sure you don't want to spend tonight in detention."
"Mum, please let me go too!" said a small red haired girl nearly crying.
"Ginny, you are going next year when you are old enough."
Hermione felt sorry for the unknown girl but didn't have time to think about it as a dark brown owl landed on her shoulder.
"Are you lost?" she asked the bird.
"There you are, Ernie!" yelled a familiar voice "Hey, Hermione, could I have my owl back?"
"Hi, Oliver" she said smiling while the owl flew on his shoulder "It's a beautiful owl."
"Yeah, I see that you already stole it." said Wood teasingly.
"No, I didn't he just flew here." said Hermione angrily.
"Just joking, please don't bite my head off! You look at me like McGonagall does whenever I try to explain her that I don't have my homework because I had Quidditch practice."
"Hey, Oliver!" yelled a pretty black girl from the train. "Aren't you coming this year?"
"Let's go the train is leaving in 2 minutes." said Wood glancing at his watch. "That's your trunk? Let me give you a hand."
He grabbed the trunk and nearly fell back. The black girl on the train laughed while Hermione was trying to hide her smile.
"Wow, I thought it would be heavier" said Wood
"Yeah, I charmed it." said Hermione smiling.
"Did you?" asked wood surprised. "Didn't you say you were a first year?
Where did you learn spells?"
"From a library book." said Hermione feeling very proud.
"Wow, that's impressive. Come on, you should join us in our compartment and you can tech me that spell." said Oliver smiling.
Hardly had they got on the train when the engines started.
It turned out that Oliver shared a compartment with the black girl who had been laughing at him named Angelina, two other girls Katie and Alicia and a boy called Daniel.
Once Oliver introduced everyone to Hermione he started to talk to Angelina and Katie about Quidditch so Hermione turned to Alicia and Daniel just to realize that they were kissing and didn't need any company at the moment. She turned back to Oliver and the girls but couldn't really understand anything from the conversation. She had read about the main rules in quidditch and found it extremely boring.
Finally she gave up and was just staring at the landscape thinking about her parents the life she left behind and about her new school. Then the two boys left and the three girls started to change into robes. Hermione quickly followed their example.
"So this is your first year." said Alicia smiling at her "Which house would you like to be in?" Do you know about houses?"
"Of, course." Said Hermione "I'd really like to be in Gryffindor or Rawenclaw I think."
"I'd never make it in Rawenclaw. Those kids are real nerds, reading and reading. It would drive me crazy!"
"So which house are you in?" asked Hermione
"Gryffindor where the brave find home" said Alicia in a sing-song voice.
"Dumbledore was there too. Probably it is the best house from what I read." said Hermione.
Then the compartment door opened and a round faced scared looking boy walked in.
"Do you know the concept of knocking?" asked Alicia quickly pulling on her robes.
"I…I'm sorry…" he said turning bright red "Er… have you seen a toad?"
Hermione stared at him for a second before she realized that they were allowed to have a pet.
"We haven't seen it but I can help you find it."
The boys face lit up. "Thanks! That would be cool."
Hermione waved to the girls in her compartment and left with the boy.
"By the way, my name is Hermione Granger." She said.
"I'm Neville Longbottom" said the boy
"So how did you lose your toad?"
"He keeps running away. This is the fourth time in a week. My granny is going to kill me!"
"Your grandma? Do you live with her?"
"Yeah, and she is not going to be happy. Anyway what house are you in?"
"I don't know yet."
"Oh, you're in first year too? I thought…I mean… you look older."
"Well, I'm going to be twelve this September."
"Then you're not much older."
In the first compartment that they entered to ask about Neville's toad sat the black haired boy in his big t-shirt and jeans with a red head boy. They seemed to be first years too.
"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one." she said trying to sound as confident as possible while looking for a frog.
"We've already told him we haven't seen it." said the red head rather rudely but Hermione didn't care. The boy was pointing his wand at a rat. She read about transfiguring animals but didn't dare to try the spells. She was afraid that she would hurt an animal if the spell went wrong. "Oh, are you doing magic. Let's see it, then."
"Er - all right." said the boy looking a bit scared.
"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."
Hermione could hardly hold back her laughter. She didn't know much about magic but she was pretty sure that such spell didn't exist.
"Are you sure that's a real spell?" She asked.
"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 learned all our course books by heart; of course, I just hope it will be enough - I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?
She spoke very quickly deciding not to mention the fact that first she thought the whole wizarding school was a bad joke. The boys looked at each other quickly looking stunned and she wondered if she said anything wrong.
"I'm Ron Weasley," the red-head muttered
"Harry Potter" said the other boy.
"Are you really?" she asked shocked "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.
Am I? asked Potter with a blank face.
"Goodness, didn't you know? I'd have found out everything I could if it was me." she said now really surprised "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... Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."
She left with Neville who was openly gaping at her.
"What's the problem?" asked Hermione
"You are a walking library; did nobody tell you that before?"
Hermione looked at Neville wondering if he was teasing her but he seemed sincere.
"Thanks I guess"
"You're welcome I guess" he sad smiling.
"Ok, let's find that toad!"
Please, please leave a review! It takes me forever to write a chapter in English, so it's really nice to see that people actually like the story. Reviews help me continue! Next chapter Hermione has a conversation with the Sorting Hat! And maybe meets with the Potions Master again…