England, September 1990

Hermione Granger had been bullied as a child. Severely, and for a variety of reasons.

First, it had been her skin. In a primary school that had catered to the more well-to-do families of her neighbourhood, she had been the only visibly mixed-race student. That had lead to scathing comments by most of her peers on just how dirty she must be, how strange she was.

Her bushy mane of tangled brown hair did not help. The girls had taken every opportunity to taunt her about it. They would pass their hands through their long, silky, and usually blonde, hair, and then yank at hers. It had gotten so bad she had often returned home with her scalp completely red, and smarting from all the tugging.

And she wouldn't even mention her teeth. Her parents were dentists for God's sake! The irony was too great.

But her bullies' biggest motive: her intelligence.

Hermione was a borderline genius, and this quickly became apparent to the members of staff of her school. With an almost photographic memory, and a voracious appetite for reading she had excelled so much that it had been impossible for her to continue with her age-group. Thus, Hermione ended up skipping a year, and another… and another, until at age ten, Hermione had ended up in a class with fifteen year olds.

Intellectually, Hermione had shone. Each year, she proved that she was capable of handling the workload assigned to her, and more. Every year, the teachers would raise their expectations of where they expected Hermione to reach. Some thought she would be the next Einstein, or Freud, or Shakespeare, or Churchill. With her intelligence, the sky truly was the limit.

Emotionally, it had been traumatizing. Before, she had dealt with the infantile insults of children her own age. After skipping so many years however, the situation had changed completely. As an ten year old in a class full of teenagers, taunts had taken on an entirely different intensity. It had almost broken her.

On her eleventh birthday, Hermione was pounced on by an owl. It landed on her hair, leaving behind something heavy on her head.

"Of course! Even the birds don't like me. But did it really just lay an egg in my hair?"

Hermione swiped at her hair, determined to rid it of any possible owl eggs. As she did, her hand brushed against something papery. After a bit of manoeuvring, she was finally able to detangle what she found was a letter from her hair.

The contents of the letter would change her life irrevocably.

She was a Witch!

Of course, she had already known that she had been special for some time now. Her first experience with the bizarre had been when she was five and Betty Andrews, a spoiled brat in her year, had been pulling at her hair. She had felt so angry, and so humiliated, and just wanted everything to stop, and then, magically it had. Betty had been frozen in place, completely immobile, for the entirety of lunch time, which gave Hermione almost an entire hour for herself! She had loved it. But she wanted to know exactly what had happened.

Thus, Hermione's naturally inquisitive mind lent itself to the task of discovering how exactly the strange incidents - and there had been many- happening around her had occurred. She soon became convinced that she had mystical powers.

Focusing those powers had been almost impossible. No matter how much she read, and how much she tried, she couldn't channel her power at a whim. This was the case for most everything she had tried. One ability, however, had very recently become available to her after years of trying and it had radically altered her treatment at school.

Hermione was now a quite capable illusionist.

But of course it was just a coincidence that her bullies had been having hallucinations as of late. Must have been drugs. The principal and their parents had certainly agreed. Especially after "seeing" one of the students "destroying evidence".

Hermione chuckled. Revenge had been served.

She would have to prepare for this Professor McGonagall's visit.

Hermione frowned.

Professor McGonagall had explained to Hermione and her rather worried parents that Hermione was what the Wizarding World called a muggle-born.

What the Professor hadn't explained, however, was that muggle-borns were social pariahs, and were often called Mudbloods by the Magical Elite, the purebloods, especially those of the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight.

It had taken Hermione all of one hour in Flourish and Botts, a magical bookstore on Diagon Alley, to discover this. She wondered why the Professor had not revealed this to her or her family. Surely she would want to at least warn the Grangers of the possibility that she could face prejudice?

Putting that aside, Hermione refused to be put into a position where she would be bullied again. She had spent her entire time at schooling being taunted and ridiculed. Until a few months ago she had been a helpless victim.

Now, however, things would change. And she had just the plan to make sure she stayed on top.

Hermione visited Diagon Alley quite frequently after her first excursion with Professor McGonagall. Almost everyday, in fact.

During the time spent there, she did two things: she researched, and she practiced her illusions. Both would be essential to her plan.

The research would help her carefully establish herself as a person of importance in the Magical World. The illusions would ensure that she had "proof" to back her claims. Thus, it was necessary to ensure that her illusions worked on more than just Muggles.

They did.

England, July 1991

Hermione's plan was ready to be enacted.

She had spent hours upon hours dedicating herself to her research and to the plan, now, all that was needed was Professor McGonagall.

Hermione's plan was simple in theory. Refusing to be bullied any longer, Hermione would enter Hogwarts as a pureblood Heiress of a House thought to be extinct. She would use her illusions to convince McGonagall that her parents were both squibs who had fled certain death from their families, and had taken refuge in Muggle London.

Her father's illusion would say that he was the squib son of the Grangers, coincidentally, a once-famous Wizarding family from her father's native Haiti. The Grangers had been notoriously elitist.

Her mother's would claim that she was the daughter of Morfin Gaunt, the now-dead heir of the ancient British pure-blood Gaunt family, and a French pure-blood witch. She would say that she had been secretly raised in her mother's home, until it was discovered that she was a squib. Her mother had not been pleased and had attempted to murder her. Fortunately, she had been able to escape and settled in Muggle London.

The two then met in Dental School, fell in love, and had Hermione. This was just about the only part of Hermione's story that was not a falsehood. But as Hermione had learned, the best lies had elements of the truth.

As a precaution, the illusions of her parents would claim that they felt uncomfortable and ashamed talking about their pasts and that they would not be speaking about it again. This shut down any possible means of the Professor, or anyone else, trying to find out more information from her parents, without her there to provide the illusions.

It had all worked out! Hermione was now a pure-blood witch in the eyes of Professor McGonagall, and gossip was bound to spread about it. She just had to let the rumour mill do its business, and by the time she entered Hogwarts, it would be common knowledge. A perfect plan.

Hermione's plan truly had been brilliant, if a bit convoluted and morally questionable. Nonetheless, despite its brilliance, it had come with a flaw.

Hermione had collected an enormous amount of data to be able to support her story. She had not, however, realized the significance of some of the names she had used.

Well, one name in particular. Gaunt.

Though she had no way of knowing, Hermione had already decided her fate.

Hermione arrived at Hogwarts dressed in the finest robes money could buy. She had decided that her display of great wealth would be most noticed at the Sorting Ceremony, and would add fuel to her ruse.

The hat sat on her head for a long while. They debated which House she belonged to. The Hat wanted either Slytherin, for how cunning she had been, Hufflepuff because he thought that she would benefit most from loyal friends, or Gryffindor for how brave, and foolish, she had been to enact her plan.

Hermione appreciated its opinion, but knew that her place was in Ravenclaw. In the end, she persuaded it to see things her way.

As she, Morgan Potter, Padma Patil, and Su Li settled into their dormitories, she couldn't help but reaffirm just how much she belonged in Ravenclaw.