Chapter 4

Hermione peeped one eye open. Huh, looked like that portal had worked after all. Satisfied that she wasn't going to crash into a wall, she cracked her other eye open as well. As she took everything in, she felt a deep sense of awe sink in. It was just like Diagon Alley. There were people everywhere, men and women in long robes accompanying their children. Owls were screeching and families were hugging. There were bunch of boys laughing and girls kissing each other on the cheek, giggling, and an entire clan of redheads was being fussed over by their equally ginger mother. Hermione realized she didn't just feel awe though, but a sense of belonging as well. She could now honestly say that this year was going to be different.

Hermione was ecstatic. Grinning, she immediately started pushing her cart forward. She had to get on the train. Otherwise she wouldn't have a decent compartment. Plus she had to get there early so she could start introducing herself to the other children. 'Friends', Hermione thought, 'here I -' the sound of a throat being cleared behind her shook her out of her thoughts '- come'

"Sweetie," her dad said, looking amused and something else Hermione couldn't define, when she turned around, "aren't you forgetting something?"

Hermione felt her eyes widen comically. Forgetting! How? She had checked everything at least three times. Not to mention she never forgot anything. Literally! Her eyes shifted from her dad's to her mom's face as if she would be able to read the answer on her forehead. She was wearing a smile that seemed to strain her muscles in a way that couldn't possibly be comfortable. Her eyes were twinkling with what could either be pride or unshed tears. Overall she seemed kind of sad, but determined not to show it.

Her dad's deep chuckle drew her attention away before she could open her mouth. Looking around she saw him crouched down on the station floor, his arms wide open. "Come here, pumpkin," he said, still laughing slightly.

Hermione ran right into his arms, clasping her hands around his neck. She felt herself being lifted into the air, giggling as she went. He hoisted her up and Hermione instinctively placed her hands on his shoulders to keep herself upright. He too was wearing a grin that seemed way too teary for such a cheery occasion.

Frowning, she said: "It's only until Christmas."

His grin widened, but Hermione was sure it was only for her benefit. If anything he seemed sadder than before. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but no words came out. What could she possibly say to make them feel better when she didn't even understand what was making them sad in the first place? Then he put her back on her feet and before she had the chance to think something up she was being enveloped again, by her mom this time.

"Honestly, I'll be back before you know it," Hermione told her mom when she finally broke the hug. She had the same reaction as her father, though; she looked as if she was seconds away from crying and yet she kept her smile firmly in place.

"Hermione, remember, if anyone threatens you – "

"Kick him in the balls, I know," finished Hermione, rolling her eyes good-naturedly.

Parents, Hermione didn't think she would ever understand them. How they could be sad on such a wonderful occasion was truly beyond her. After a few more glances at each of their faces, Hermione decided to give up. They had already made their way into each other's arms; they would be fine. They would probably be much better at consoling each other than she would at consoling either of them. Thus with one last wave in their direction, Hermione hopped back to her card and started making her way through the mass. She quickly dropped her luggage of, boarded the train and started making her way through the long corridor.

She passed a few compartments, but those were mainly filled with children that seemed a bit too old to associate with her. Hermione was fairly certain that particular social rule counted even in the wizarding world. Most of the first years, she found, sat in the back of the train. She had planned to pick a compartment with not too many people in it and then introduce herself to everyone, but – well – she kind of froze up every time she passed one. A tidal way of insecurities hit her hit her each time she paused in front one. What if they didn't like her? What if there were some weird wizard customs she didn't know of? She hadn't bought any books on etiquette – what if it was completely different – she wouldn't know until she had embarrassed herself. Each time she passed a compartment she steeled herself and each time she ranted herself out of actually going in.

Eventually, she found an empty compartment and sighed. It didn't look like she was going to enter any of the other ones so she might as well sit down in this one. Friends could wait, she supposed. She put her bag down on the seat and then installed herself beside it. She pulled her now favorite book, Hogwarts, A History, out of her bag and started to reread some of her favorite passages, specifically those describing the Hogwarts Houses.

Ravenclaw, known to prize intelligence, wit and knowledge, would be the obvious choice. Hermione was smart, that much was certain, and she supposed she could make a lot of intelligent friends there. The thought brought a smile to her face. Then again, she could make them all hate her by overshadowing them at every turn. That thought made her smile come right off again. Then there was Huffelpuff, which values hard work, fairness, and patience, and was possible as well. She had always been dedicated after all and she did believe in fair play – no point in winning if you didn't beat your opponent fair and square. It could work. Though the book did mention the house had a bit of a reputation when it came to its members being a tad dimwitted and, well, that would not do. Another house was Gryffindor, which was described to hold only the brave and the bold. Truth be told it was what she was hoping for. This house seemed to produce the heroes, the adventurers, but most of all everyone loved them, not liked as the Huffelpuffs, but truly loved. The book hadn't explicitly said it, but Hermione could tell they were the darlings of the school. There was nothing wrong with wanting to be adored. It probably wasn't in the cards for her though; she would probably get put in Ravenclaw, nothing wrong with that.

She supposed she could get into the last house as well. Slytherin was the house where only the ambitious, cunning and resourceful thrived. Now she wasn't sure about cunning. Sure she was smart, but cunning was an entire different matter. The same counted for resourcefulness. She didn't really know as she had never really been placed in a situation she had to think herself out of: every time her former classmates got a bit too much for her, something, which she now knew was magic, would blow up in their faces. Also, Hermione had read that the founder Salazar Slytherin left the school because he refused to let muggleborns, like herself, into the school. This was, of course, at least a thousand years ago, around the time when muggles were still actually hunting witches and thus completely understandable. It was obviously outdated now though so Hermione didn't understand why it was so heavily featured. Still she had to admit, there was one aspect of the house she did have though and she had it in spades: ambition. Whatever house she would be sorted into, whatever courses she would decide to take and whatever job she would decide to practice, Hermione Granger would be someone, someone to write books about and quote in class. Hermione Granger would be someone to remember, because she refused to be anything less.

A tentative knock shook her out of her musings. She quickly slammed the book shut and clutched it to her chest – a habit from when her former classmates would try to take her books so they could make fun of them. Her head shot up. Outside the see-through compartment door stood a boy with his hand raised, looking like a deer caught in a headlight. Hermione blinked a few times; it took some time to process this. Someone had come to talk to her!

Hermione immediately jumped of her seat and rushed to meet him. Throwing the door open, she put on her cheeriest grin and chirpily said: "Hello! I'm Hermione Granger. Pleased to meet you."

She stuck her hand out, grin still intact and waited for him to take it. She faltered slightly when he hesitated, looking her up and down wide eyed, but eventually he took it and stuttered: "H-H-Hel-lo, I-I'm Neville, Neville L-Longbot-tem."

He visibly swallowed at the end of the sentence seemingly relieved that he had gotten it out all. A part of Hermione was relieved as well. He was just as nervous as she was. Though she prayed to god her hands weren't as clammy as his. Honestly, did he have a condition? Hermione had to physically fight the urge to pull her hand out of his grasp and wipe it off on her jeans. She didn't though and even managed to hide her grimace from him. The latter wasn't that difficult, seeing as he was rather intent on looking at her feet instead of her face.

The obligated time of shaking hands eventually ended and Hermione subtly moved her hand to her jeans. He was too busy looking at anything but her to notice anyway. After another very visible swallow he seemed to have finally gathered enough courage to try his hand at talking once again.

"I'm l-looking f-for my toad. H-His name is T-Trevor. Have you seen him?"

Toad? Hermione had read her Hogwarts letter at least a hundred times, she knew toads were among the few pets you could take to Hogwarts. Still she hadn't thought anyone would actually take one with. They didn't seem like they would make good pets. They weren't useful like owls – even though they were dreadful creatures Hermione could still see they had their uses – or cute and independent like cats. You couldn't even pet a toad! Wait, could you?

Hermione did her best not to let her confusion and slight disgust show on her face. Instead she tried to show how intently she was listening to his problems and to at least appear as if she cared about it. That is what good friends, or at least good potential friends, do after all. Well, that is what she had once read in a psychology book on friendship at least. 'Friends,' she reminded herself, 'help other friends as well.'

"No, sorry," she answered, "but I could help you look if you'd like."

The boy looked genuinely grateful and even grinned. "Y-yeah," he answered, "that'd be g-great."

"Excellent!" Hermione yelled, "Let me just put my stuff back and I'll be right along."

Then she sprinted to her back to put her book back. She felt the distinct urge to clap her hands like a little girl but repressed it by imagining herself turning around and finding an audience of her former classmates, sticking her tongue out and obnoxiously singing: 'Naa na na naa na!' Childish, but satisfying. Grinning from ear to ear she quickly ran back to a still overwhelmed looking Neville.

"Okay, let's go!" she chirped, pulling him down the corridor by his robes.

Her companion and potential friend wasn't exactly what she had envisioned for her first friend. He continued to stutter and thus let her do almost all of the talking. Now normally she would have no problem with that. She was a very eloquent person and didn't mind talking; it also gave her chance to introduce herself to some new people. It did become annoying after a while though, having someone practically cowering behind your back. When she imagined her friends, she had always seen tall boys and girls with glasses planted firmly on their high held noses. She had always imagined sophisticated people, people that were held in high regard. Neville was not. Hermione didn't want to be picky, - 'Take every friend you can get!' most of her seemed to be screaming - but Neville didn't even come close. Yes, Hermione was going to hold off on calling the boy her first friend.

They went from compartment to compartment but no one had seen a toad named Trevor. Eventually Hermione had to tell Neville that she really had to go back to her own compartment to change, but she promised him she'd be back immediately. She walked to her compartment as fast as her legs would carry her nearly knocking someone over on the way.

"Hey! Watch where you're –"

"Sorry!" and she was running again. Neville may not be her first choice of friends but that didn't mean she could leave him to fend for himself; he would probably bump into a wall or something. Plus, over the last hour Hermione had become determined to find his stupid toad. She was playing it smart this time. Even if she didn't manage to make any friends, she would still have Neville to go to if needed. This would not be a repeat of her last school experience; she would not allow it to be. She changed in record time and then strode back to where she had left the boy. Once there, she noticed he had only done two compartments in her absence and most likely not very well. She would just start over then.

"Come along, Neville," she hollered as stopped in front of the next compartment.

"Uh, I've a-already d-done that one, H-Hermione," he said. As if she hadn't noticed that. Hermione just ignored him.

"Has anyone seen a toad ? Neville's lost one," she said, cataloguing their faces and her first impression of them as she had done with all the other students she had met. The black haired boy looked rather kind; probably because of his friendly glittering, green eyes. The other boy though, the red head, he was another story. His face twisted into what Hermione supposed was an annoyed expression but simply look weird to her. Not to mention he had dirt on his nose.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," the redhead said. Obviously, he was rude as well. Hermione mentally put him in the 'Only in Case of Emergencies' category, which was even lower than Neville; at least Neville was a nice person. It was only then that she noticed he had his wand out. The wand looked rather battered and something wide glinted at the end. That must be the core sticking out. She may not have gotten her hands on a wand making book yet but she was fairly certain it wasn't supposed to do that. Nevertheless, she was intrigued.

"O, are you doing magic?" she said, sitting down, "Let's see it, then."

She held her head raised so high she had to peer down to see what he was doing, her back as straight as a plank. The boy looked surprised and more than a little nervous. Hermione just hoped he wouldn't do anything that wasn't in their books. What if he did some complicated spell he ha learned from his parents as soon as he got his wand? She would look like an absolute fool! Her foot started to tab and she couldn't bring herself to stop it.

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow

Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

Nothing happened. Hermione allowed the corners of her lips to tug slightly upwards. He had waved his wand, but nothing had happened. She carefully breathed out. The rat was as grey as ever and still fast asleep.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" Hermione drawled, taking the time to raise one very deliberate eyebrow before she continued: "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple just for practice and it's all worked for me." – Well, she had practiced the incantation and the wand movement, but she hadn't actually attempted to do any magic since the first page of each of her school books clearly stated that magic by minors in muggle-inhabited areas. It didn't seem like they knew that though and she sure wouldn't be the one to tell them – "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 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?"

Their faces were almost comical; their eyes were equally wide as they swallowed simultaneously. Then they looked at each other, quite obviously stunned. That's right! Hermione may not have had the advantage of growing up around magic, but she was more than capable of making up for it.

"I'm Ron Weasley," the rude redhead muttered.

"Harry Potter," the black haired boy with the glasses said.

"Are you really?" said Hermione, her eyes flying open with both astonishment and excitement, "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."

Why, Hermione was in the presence of a Wizarding celebrity! She grinned. Grinning makes you look kinder; at least that's what her mom told her. Maybe he had want to be her friend. You become friends with people you have a lot in common with after all and they were both rather exceptional even if he didn't look like much. Then again looking at Hermione you wouldn't be able to tell she was a child genius either. Though, this boy took that into the extreme. Hermione was pretty sure he was a bit skinnier than was healthy and his clothes were at least three sizes too big for him. He also wasn't very tall. If it weren't for the lightning bolt shaped scar she spied on his forehead, she wouldn't believe him. Frowning, she thought: 'Shouldn't the vanquisher of the Dark Lord be a little more impressive?'

He also looked a bit dazed, as if he wasn't sure what was happening around him. Then it clicked; after all the books had stated he had disappeared shortly after it was done.

"Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me," said Hermione dumfounded. Hermione desperately wanted to ask if he remembered anything, if his scar hurt sometimes, if …, but that would be rude and she really couldn't afford to make him angry. In fact he already looked uncomfortable as it was. Bullocks! Being a celebrity, Harry Potter was sure to be popular and when popular people disliked you everyone disliked you. 'Alright, Hermione,' she thought nervously, 'just change the subject.'

"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 one, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad…"

He was still staring at her as if her hair and nose had just simultaneously turned pink. Well, that wasn't working. 'Best to just remove yourself from the equation,' she decided.

"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."

Then she grabbed Neville by the wrist and dragged him along with her, out of the compartment. The toadless boy looked like he couldn't believe what had just happened. He had a look of such ridiculous disbelieve on his face that Hermione was two seconds away from snapping her fingers in front of his face. Then he finally broke out in a grin and started gushing about The Boy Who Lived.

Really, Hermione didn't think the skinny boy she had just met warranted the blind admiration Neville had for him. From what she gathered he had only been a babe when he got the scar that had made him famous. Modern Magical History had clearly stated that he was only two years old when the dark wizard Voldemort attempted to kill him and disappeared. Thus it was much more likely that it was a preventive measure taken by either one of his parents, who had both died during the attack, or Dumbledore, who had been hiding the family, that had actually saved him. Still, it was better that he didn't dislike her. That is why Hermione decided to let Neville continue his search for his toad alone and to go up to the driver herself. That way she could give the boy a much more accurate calculation of when they would arrive.

She turned to tell Neville just that when – "Hey!" Hermione shrieked as she felt something collide with her throwing her to the ground. She landed flat on her butt. Angrily she blew the locks of hair that had fallen in front of her face away and clenched her fists, readying herself for the tirade of a lifetime, but then –

'That's not normal,' was the first thought that came to mind when she laid eyes what had bumped into her or rather who. The boy's skin was as pale as a summer cloud, his platinum, slicked back hair only a few shades darker, though there was a pink hue on his cheeks as if he were flushed. His face was made up of hard lines: high cheekbones, a pointed chin and an aristocratic nose. She thought he was most likely the most beautiful boy she had ever seen. That is if it wasn't for that ugly sneer on his face.

"Are you blind?" spit the pale boy haughtily, slapping away the hands of the two meat sacks that were trying to help him up.

"Am I blind? I'm not the one running around the corridor knocking people to the ground!" – well at least not this time – "You're the one that hit me!" Hermione felt her nostrils flare as she yelled back at the boy that was now standing up and looking down at her.

"Do you have any idea who I am?" sneered the boy, "I am Draco Malfoy."

Crawling onto her feet again, she scoffed: "Yes, well, I'm Hermione Granger, but I'm not being a prat about it!"

Then she twirled around on her heels and elegantly strode of to the driver, leaving a bunch of gaping boys in her wake. On her way she huffed; so far she was not impressed by wizard kind at least not with their manners. Bumping into someone and then yelling at that person for it, honestly! Hermione didn't care if he was the Queen of the entire United-Kingdom, if he was going to be rude she would tell him off.

At least the driver was polite when she asked him when they would be arriving. Of course, he confirmed her suspicions; they were nearly there. With a satisfied smile, Hermione took off again, back to The Boy Who Lived.

"He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side," said the redhead ominously. Hermione's nose couldn't help but crunch up when she noticed he still had food in his mouth. Honestly was that boy raised in a barn? Then he turned around and faced her. He looked once againannoyed while he asked: "Can we help you with something?"

His voice was dripping with sarcasm, but Hermione was determined to not let it - 'Do you actually think that's normal, that hair of yours?' followed by cruel giggles - get to her. She would stay friendly and make up for making the kind, dark haired boy uncomfortable by helping him out.

"You'd better hurry up and put your robes on, I've just been up front to ask the driver and he says we're nearly there," she managed to say all this without letting her annoyance shine through and was quite proud of herself. The kind boy appreciated it too, it seemed; he smiled at her. That was when she noticed what a mess their compartment was. Her brain immediately linked the scene to the boys that had bumped into her in the corridor and her eyes flew open.

"You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!"

She had just wanted to warn them, to be helpful, but again the redhead - what was his name again, oh yes, Ron - didn't take it as such. Instead he scowled at her. "Scrabbers has been fighting, not us," said Ron, his face becoming even redder than before, "Would you mind leaving while we change?"

Again his voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"All right -" Hermione said clenching her jaw, "I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors,"

Hermione pursed her lips and turned on her heels, letting her hair swing as she did and hoping against logic that it would hit him in the face. 'Don't stoop to his level, Hermione, you're better than that,' she repeated to herself as she walked back to the compartment entrance. When he heard a snort behind her though it became too much.

She twirled round again, molded her expression into a carbon copy of her most hated former bully and haughtily said: "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?"

Then and only then did she storm out.

Outside, Hermione was quickly swept into the maelstrom of people. The train had been gradually slowing down for the last few minutes and Hermione decided to go back to her own compartment to get her handbag seeing as she didn't know where Neville was anyway. She had to worm her way through all the children to get anywhere though, which became annoying fast. Honestly, they couldn't just make two lines was above her; it would be much more effective. On the way to her compartment she heard a cool, almost mechanic voice echo through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

She supposed the intercom had just given her one less thing to worry about, still she didn't feel comfortable leaving all her books and the rest of her luggage behind. What if someone stole something? Hermione decided to set it out of her mind and to follow the stream of children out the train; the school probably used magic to move the luggage anyway.

Thus Hermione pushed herself to the door and onto the tiny, dark platform it lead to. Once there she couldn't help but shiver, both from excitement and the cold. She pulled the long robes closer to her body and rubbed her arms because of the latter and felt her stomach lurch because of the former. Still, Hermione thought she looked fairly composed. That is until she saw a lamp hanging above the students followed closely by a big, hairy head. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. That couldn't be a man. It looked like one, but it couldn't be, he was way too tall, too big, to be human.

"Is that a - a giant?" Hermione wondered. She didn't even know she had spoken out loud until she got an answer.

"Oh yes, that's Hagrid, the gamekeeper. My sister told me about him. He's only a half-giant though." Hermione turned around to see that a nice looking girl had spoken. She had round cheeks and two pigtails holding thick, golden hair together.

"Oh," Hermione said, "that wasn't in the book I read, Hogwarts, a History."

The golden haired girl just rolled her eyes, but paired with the kind grin on her face it didn't seem so mean. What she did next though: "The important things never are," she laughed.

Hermione blinked a few times. Important - not in - never in - books. She was spared from having to answer - or maybe the girl was, depending on how you look at it - by the half-giant.

"Welcome to Hogwarts, kids."

Author's Note

Hiya !

First and foremost, let me start by stating that this story has reached over a hundred followers. Cue the music. Celebrate good times – COME ON! Life is awesome and I am ridiculously grateful to all of you. Seriously, you guys have no idea how much it means to me seeing that number get higher. I check those stats literally every few hours, more if I've just updated. It's not healthy. So truly thank you all.

So now that my little sob fest – Happy tears, my darling, happy tears – is done, onto the more practical stuff. For one, I've noticed that I can never really go into as much detail as I want in these author's notes because I don't want to make it too long and loaded with stuff most of you don't care about. I wouldn't want people to stop reading them because of that and miss the actually important stuff. Nevertheless, I kind of really want to talk to you guys about all of that. Dilemma? Or is it? *waggles eyebrows like a complete creep*

I have found the solution, people! I have started a tumblr (I've decided I don't like twitter) account dedicated solely to me as a writer so those of you who are actually interested in what I have to say about my chapters, dramione and Harry Potter in general and want to have some constructive dialogue about it all, you can follow me on LaurenTheBishop on tumblr. Do so. I'm interesting.

For this chapter for example I want to talk about Hermione's treatment and thoughts about Neville – which are both horrible – her first meeting with Harry and Ron and the fact that FOR CHRIST SAKE WE MET DRACO FOR THE FIRST TIME! But that just won't go into an author's note less than a thousand words long so this is my solution.

So, FOLLOW ME.

Seriously, I need people to talk to.

Anyway, this already got way longer than I intended (see what I mean?) so I now bid thee adieu.

Bye guys,

See you on Friday (or tumblr)

PS: I'm not shamelessly advertising myself, you're shamelessly advertising yourself.