9
Close on to two hundred students shared the Slytherin dungeons and Hermione had still not made one single friend.
A shame, because she'd like to hide in the library forever but between group projects and potions partners she was learning she couldn't escape people. So she had to keep trying. She had to understand. It didn't help that her classmates all knew each other, making her automatically the outsider.
"How's your mother doing?" Parvati Patil asked Pansy Parkinson as they were getting out of their first Potions lesson with the Gryffindors.
"She's fine, why do you ask?"
"Mum's asking."
"Not asking about mine, is she?" Daphne lashed out. She sounded hateful. Unlike herself.
Parvati Patil looked guilty for a second. "I don't know."
"Don't you get mad at Parvati," Lavender Brown said with a sour expression. "She didn't do anything, it's grown-up stuff."
Parvati quickly joined the rest of the Gryffindors. Lavender gave Daphne and Pansy a you snakey bullies look before following suit.
This was quite confusing to Hermione. She had to work backwards through rumours to get a clue of what people were talking about. "What was that about?" she asked her classmates.
Pansy only huffed, but Daphne'd never be so rude as to ignore somebody. "Gryffindors being embarrassing," she said vaguely and Millicent Bulstrode snickered. They all breezed ahead, whispering to each other in a way that looked more secretive than how Hermione'd ever talked to anyone in her life.
She supposed she should be grateful that they talked to her at all, that she wasn't completely left out like Tracey Davis, that she didn't have to take part in girlish stuff and gossip, all these stupid things she knew she had no interest in, and yet… It stung, not being invited. Not being one of them.
"Well done, Potter," Malfoy's gleeful voice called, interrupting her gloomy thoughts. "That was quite a performance you gave in there. It's like you can't wait to be sent back to your grubby muggles, isn't it?"
Ron Weasley whirled around and made a rude gesture at him, and at Hermione by extension. She glared back, oozing with righteous indignation, and a full measure of hurt feelings. Over the summer she'd read the tale of Harry Potter at least five times, had been delighted to realize he'd be in her year, had hoped when she met him and Weasley in the train that they could maybe be friends. It had quickly become clear, however, that hope was too ambitious. Harry Potter, as it turned out, was not a powerful clever wizard. He was just a boy. A scrawny boy with Sellotaped glasses and a freckled ginger friend, and, as if that weren't enough, they both clearly hated her.
Malfoy was still in high spirits because of the way Professor Snape had wrecked Potter, and eventually settled on Hermione as the most competent person available for conversation. "They're a sorry lot, they are," he told her with malicious delight. "It's so inconsiderate to look as poor as they do. I think it's so common, don't you, using secondhand cauldrons?"
"I think you're as bad as them," Hermione informed him, nice and slow, so there'd be no misunderstanding. Then she stuck her nose up in the air and left, footsteps echoing through Malfoy's offended silence.
The week didn't get any better, with the Slytherin girls refusing—once again—to come study in the library, Blaise disappearing who-knew-where, and Hermione ending up all alone in the common room, trying to find a good seat to practice transfiguring matches into needles. And that was only the start of her problems.
A paper was pinned up on the noticeboard saying that first-years would be having flying lessons on Thursday along with the Gryffindors.
Hermione didn't know how to fly. She'd never even tried. She didn't want to try. Brooms scared her. They did this because her gran-who-wasn't-really-her-gran used to whoop her with one. They did this because they were scary. Imagine sitting alone on a thin stick in the air, many meters above the ground. Now imagine the stick being very unstable, and that if you did one movement wrong, or lost your balance, you might fall off, hit the ground under you and possibly injure yourself badly and die and all sorts of stuff that was scary.
As she worked herself into a frenzy, Draco Malfoy appeared. "What is this? Flying lessons on Thursday… with the Gryffindors?" He sounded overjoyed. Flying was the one skill at which he was confident he would outshine everybody. To hear him say it, he was fast enough to create tides on the black lake if he flew past it. "This is brilliant."
"Not really," Hermione muttered irritably. "We're not all massive fans of broomsticks. Does your family own a quidditch team somewhere or something?"
"You're a witch, you can't possibly understand. Girls are more concerned with dresses and the like, how to get shiny hair, and where to get Potter's autograph."
"Careful, Malfoy. Your jealousy is showing."
"Jealous? Me? I know it's near impossible for you, but don't be ridiculous."
"You do have to admit Harry is unquestionably the most talked-about and admired person at school."
Her classmate shot her an irritated look that clearly asked, 'Where is this going?'
"This would naturally anger somebody like you," Hermione went on delicately, "like a slur on your family name. Must be why you're always bullying the Gryffindors. Especially Potter and Weasley. Jealousy."
The 'Where is this going?' faded into 'Are you out of your mind?'
"I'm not trying to be rude, but—"
Draco Malfoy was posh enough to disregard pesky things like manners. "Shut up, Bourbon. You don't know anything about my life, so keep your little nose out of it if you know what's good for you."
Prat. Somebody really ought to give him the licking he so richly deserved. "I also got wizarding blood going back centuries, doesn't mean I can't appreciate Gryffindor. Anyway, I'm not asking you to cozy up to them, but couldn't you at least leave them alone? You're pushing your luck, what if you get caught by a professor and lose us points, as your housemate I—"
"Have no right to tell me what I can or cannot do," Malfoy hissed. "You're not my mother. Actually, you're a nobody, so shut up."
"Fine! I don't care!" Hermione bristled. "No wonder people would rather be friends with Harry Potter instead of you—I would pick him over you any day!"
Something nasty glimmered in Malfoy's grey eyes. "The only way Potter's ever going to talk to you is if you do his homework for him. Because you're a lousy, lousy witch. Merlin," he snorted, "haven't you realized Parkinson and Greengrass don't like you? Zabini let them know you lived in some big castle, so they'd accept being seen with a teacher's pet. How sad, fancy having to smarm up to a French sissy!"
Hermione drew herself up, cheeks flaming. "At least—at least I'm not obsessed with two Gryffindors who want nothing to do with me."
"Maybe they're obsessed with me!"
"Maybe I'm the tooth fairy!"
"The tooth…?" Malfoy didn't know whether to be angry or just confused. "Is that supposed to be an insult?"
Hermione was about to tell him what really constituted an insult when someone came into the common room.
An expectant hush fell over just as the secret stone door closed back behind a teenager. Brown hair ruthlessly buzz cut against his scalp, purple circles under his eyes, shiny badge. Visibly deranged. Niles Hanley, sixth-year prefect.
Draco took this opportunity to flee, pivoting on his heels and stomping to the dormitories.
Hermione was about to do the same when she was asked, "Hey, you there. Whats-your-name, Bougon? Nah, Bourbon? What's up?"
"I reckon that's none of your business."
Hanley didn't respond. What he did was stare expressionlessly at her in a way that immediately got her talking. When she was done, he asked, "Why didn't you tell somebody instead of telling him off yourself? That's what we're for."
Hermione startled. It had occurred to her, but it seemed like a situation she had to deal with herself.
"You shouldn't take the law into your own hands," Hanley counselled. "That way it'll be you who ends up in trouble."
She listened because she respected him, but what he was saying didn't sound right. If you didn't have a choice, if you wanted to get things done, you did have to take the law into your own hands. If you were hungry and no one would feed you, then you had to steal food from the fridge; that was how real life worked.
The prefect was staring at her curiously. "You've had quite a stressful week, haven't you? All the running around…"
"Well, our first Potions class was certainly an experience."
"Ah! You met Snape!' His face cleared. "No wonder you're feeling all messed up. You work yourself too hard, Ichijo was telling me about it, you're that kid who gets up at seven to study every morning, aren't you?"
"I do like to knock out a couple of chapters before breakfast," Hermione admitted.
He pushed her toward the corridors. "Go to bed, Bourbon. And can you take the afternoon off work at all? Tell you what, I'll talk to Malfoy—boys can be such little shits at that age—don't worry."
"I don't think—"
"Just go along with it. I've been looking for a chance to destroy this kid."
Hermione went along with it. Good to have some of the mad people on her side, for a change. There was a new spring in her step as she ran toward the wide corridors that led to the dorms.
"A new addition to the goon squad?"
Hermione turned round. She found herself looking down at a head of hair, so black it shone blue under the greenish candlelights. Theodore Nott sat in an armchair, so quiet and unobtrusive, she'd walked past without even noticing him. Despite the fact they were classmates, it was the longest thing he had ever addressed to her. She didn't count the time he said 'Mind lending me a quill?' in Herbology.
"Pardon?"
"Malfoy," he said, lethargically. "Seems like you're close friends. Are you telling me you like Crabbe and Goyle too?"
Hermione wasn't sure she liked his tone. "Not close friends," she said stiffly. "Not any kind of a friend, in fact. Just classmates."
"Right. I didn't mean to offend. Your conversation sounded interesting."
"Why, what did you hear?"
There was a sudden racket behind him, which turned out to be a gang of girls falling about with hilarity, standing back up, and collapsing into giggles again. Now that's what a Friday evening was meant to be like. Just a bunch of friends having fun. How come Hermione was stuck talking to this awkward dullard? She winced. That was not nice of her. And she was not about to start losing her manners just because this prat Malfoy got her upset. Besides, Nott might be a little on the reserved side, but Blaise liked him. "And," she went on more politely, "what are you up to?"
Nott snorted. "I've asked myself the same question. Sitting back home watching water boil would've been a better use of a day."
Hermione stared at him. "But… we're at a boarding school!'
He stared back. "So?"
"Well, there's food, and amazing books… and all these different people…"
His mouth gave a twitch. "I already have food and books. And I have nothing to say to a single one of these people. But I see your point. School's better than home in many other ways." It seemed to be a long speech for him and he stopped abruptly, as if he had used up his quota of words for the day.
As Hermione watched him disappear down the corridor, she realized he hadn't really answered any of her questions.
Next morning at breakfast, it looked safe enough for her to go sit with her classmates. Pansy was busy talking Blaise's ear off, and Malfoy was sipping his pumpkin juice, looking slightly less arrogant than usual. He even handed her a glass when she sat down. Well, he slammed it down malevolently. But it was an improvement. Hanley must have had words with him.
"Hermione," said Blaise, shoving a chunk of bread across the table to her, "you have to taste this."
"What is it?"
"Rolls."
"But I don't like rolls."
"You'll like these rolls."
Hermione chewed off part of it. Blaise was right. When it came to food, Blaise was always right. "Did you get through all of your Transfiguration homework?" he asked. "I've been working on that formula McGonagall gave us for ages. The variables of wand power and concentration, I could understand, but that part about bodyweight has been driving me crazy."
Hermione was explaining that weight was proportional to the difficulty of the spell when she was interrupted by the post. To her pleasure, three owls soared down and dropped letters onto her lap. A screech owl with the latest issue of Magie d'Aujourd'hui—French newspaper—then Lucas's owl's turn, and they had hardly fluttered out of the way that one of the school birds dropped a letter.
Who would be writing to her from school? She ripped it open, frowning. It said,
Miss Bourbon,
I am sorry to hear about your medical condition that makes it impossible for you to ride a broom. You are thereby exempt from Thursday's flying lesson.
R. Hooch
Hermione had difficulty hiding her bewilderment as she handed the note to Blaise. This particular problem had been bugging her all weekend and it was solved just like that, out of nowhere?
"You can thank your dad for that one," Blaise said when he was done reading. "Have you been crying your swotty little heart out to him?"
Hermione had in fact complained to her father in her last letter. "What…? It wasn't that serious. Why would he take the trouble to—?"
Blaise got serious, in that mock-serious way he had where you never knew if he was clowning or not. "Of course he's going to take it seriously, Lord Bourbon loves you more than anyone could love anything in the world. You can tell that in thirty seconds."
"A little melodramatic, don't you think?" Hermione said, weighing the benefits of spending Thursday afternoon studying against the drawbacks of having to miss out on British wizard experience. Sadly, she had plans for her school path—like being the best student to ever grace the corridors of Hogwarts—so the study-afternoon won.
Pansy leaned over. "Are you skipping flying lessons? You can't do that. That's against your morals or something."
Hermione folded the note. She did feel guilty. But not as bad as she would have felt if she had to ride a broomstick. "It's not skipping, and even if it were I can give you a bunch of good reasons why I have no other choice. The alternative being that I would be stuck in a ridiculously dangerous class, with rubbish security, rubbish gear, and at the end nothing for my father to boast to his friends about. I'm doing everyone a favour, really. And why do we have to take flying classes in the first place? Frankly, safety provision at Hogwarts is unacceptable and should be reviewed by the Ministry's Department of Magical Education immediately."
That cracked Pansy up. Things that she found funny were highly unpredictable. "GREENGRASS," she yelled, "you've GOT to listen to this."
Daphne stopped playing with her cashmere scarf. "I beg your pardon?" Beside her, Theodore Nott just sat there, saying nothing. They made a good couple—a silent, poker-faced couple.
"Don't you laugh at me, Pansy."
"She tells me the funniest stuff I've heard all year, and then she says don't laugh. This is aweso—"
"Shut up, Sissy," cut in a voice from the other end of the table. Chairs were scraping against the floor as a bunch of giant blokes stood and the biggest of them all started Terminator-marching toward them. He was rugged-featured, with black stubble and a heavy brow over deep-set eyes. "Stop being so fucking loud, first thing in the morning," he said when he was close enough to loom over them.
With a squeal, Pansy stood and threw herself at him in a tackle-hug, utterly unmoved by the fact that sixth-years and above were the scariest thing ever. "Marcus! No 'good morning'? No 'and how did you sleep, pretty witch?' No introduction to your friends?"
'Marcus' grabbed her by the collar and lifted her up, peeling her off him like she was a kitten. Bringing her up to his eye level, he said, "No noogie, no fist in your face. You've been lucky so far. Keep up the bullshit, though, and I might just drop you on your dumb little head."
"Hey! Put me down this instant you troll-faced—"
Hermione grabbed Pansy's dangling shoe. "We'll be late to class." That wasn't the case, but she was trying to avoid bloodshed.
Marcus snorted and set Pansy back on her feet. "Try to keep an eye on this maniac," he ordered Hermione before stalking back to his big, scary friends. People gave them a wide berth, as if they expected him to draw an axe and come after them.
"Marcus's captain of the Slytherin team," Pansy explained when they were on their way to History. "He's my second cousin, once removed."
"I can see it," said Blaise.
"Ugh, he's way too big and annoying, but I guess most wizards are." Pansy launched into a story about how they went to Greece on holiday and her cousin went insane while they were touring museums in Athens. It required a lot of patience, she explained, and Marcus had none. "Our mums told us to sketch these old skeletons of famous dead Greek wizards. Marcus tore up his paper and threw all his pencils on the floor. He's kind of a giant retard and his friends are just… weirdoes, and mentally, they're all three years old. He's always flunking all his classes. They actually put him in some remedial Potions class because he brews like somebody who doesn't understand English."
"Remedial Potions?" Hermione said with a scoff. "With Professor Snape?"
"Yup, along with some other retards. They're that terrible. It's a shock at first, but you get used to it."
Hermione was finding out she was good at getting used to a lot of things. Within two months, everything about Hogwarts seemed normal: the solemn, high-ceilinged halls and the rusted moving stairs, the aquamarine creatures shimmering behind the common room's windows, Lucas's daily letter arriving by owl in the Great Hall, Pansy Parkinson's soft snores in the four-poster bed next to hers, the ceaseless, noisy swarms of students pushing past each other, laughing with each other, shouting at each other. No, she didn't have trouble adapting to the school.
What she failed to adapt to was the same thing she'd been always failing to adapt to, as Malfoy had so helpfully pointed out: people.
Her foolish hopes that her classmates might one day grow to like her were soon dashed. She was in the library, tackling an essay for Binns on the inventor of self-stirring cauldrons when a throat cleared. She looked up to find Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, and Dean Thomas standing over her table.
"D'you mind if we sit there, since it's big enough for all of us?" Thomas asked. "Unless you're waiting for all your mates."
Hermione pretended not to hear his joking tone and grabbed her bag. "I'm not waiting for anyone."
The three of them exchanged a look, then Weasley snorted. "Yes, Bourbon. We know. I bet my wand you're never waiting for anyone."
"Can I bet mine too?" Thomas said with a laugh.
Hermione had a twin. She had books. She didn't need anyone. Even as she thought it, she felt a pressure in her throat, a burning in her eyes. The unsaid word lonely continued to rattle in her chest. Homesick. "What you can both do is stop being prats." It came out in a whisper.
Potter's brow creased. Oh, no. Concern.
She looked up at the ceiling, trying to make the tears drain back to where they came from. When she looked back, the Gryffindors were still standing there awkwardly. To cry in front of these childish idiots would be the ultimate humiliation. "You know what, it's all yours." She quickly grabbed her things, then ran out the door, knowing as she did that she couldn't run fast enough to leave her annoying self behind.
. . .
The common room was packed and smelled delicious, people were eating food that had been sent up. Hermione, however, was in her bed, silent.
It was the silence of post-hysteria exhaustion, and she'd been observing it for a very long time. Even though there was something about being alone in the dark that brought her back to her earlier fears, and her earlier fears were something special. Facing-a-troll-kind of special. She felt swallowed by the space; tiny, weak, fragile. The idea of sleep was terrifying, so she padded to the bathroom, eyed her brightly lit reflection in the mirror. Pale cheeks, wide eyes, wrinkled robes. Not exactly a sinister image, for someone who'd just survived a deadly creature.
She decided to write her family a letter laying out the apocalyptic evening, if only to have something to do. A highly-edited version, of course. No mention of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley's parts, because she was tempted to think the unintended consequences would be pretty dire, and she didn't want to get them in trouble. She'd never dreamt there would be a time in her life when she'd feel responsible for the two reckless fools.
But she'd also never dreamt there would be a time in her life when she'd be standing there frozen in fear facing a twelve-foot mountain troll, up against a bathroom wall and alone and helpless. And then watching these two fools burst in and save her life. Worried about her.
Alright, so Weasley might have been the reason she was even in the girls' toilets in the first place, but still—they didn't have to risk a marauding beast to find her, especially when they weren't exactly friends. Again, they did inadvertently lock it in the bathroom with her, but as soon as they realised, they rushed in to rescue her without a thought for themselves. And that charm on the troll's club to knock it out? Clever. She'd severely underestimated them, and she'd overestimated herself. What did it matter if she could answer all the questions in class if she couldn't use magic when she really needed it?
"Bourbon?" called the eternally nervous Tracey Davis, fidgeting in the doorway.
Hermione was too exhausted and drained even to find the fidgeting annoying. "What is it?" she asked, leaning back in her bed and putting her quill down.
"I wanted…" Fidget, fidget. How did this girl end up in Slytherin? "I didn't see you downstairs. And at the banquet earlier. Are you okay?"
Hermione tilted her head. It had recently come to her attention that the girls in her year looked down on Davis, for some reason. Like in astronomy this week, when they had to work in groups and draw a map of the solar system.
"We should split things up," Pansy had said, "Hermione, you do the scale and measurements. Daphne'll fill in the chart, I'm on the telescope, and Millicent's in charge of supplies."
"Fine with me," Hermione readily answered. "Tracey, do you want to—"
"I want a good grade," Pansy interrupted her with a bruising look. "Let's just divide it between us."
Davis had reddened but pretended she didn't notice she was being excluded. Pansy was always doing that, tripping her and being snide to her—not that Hermione'd ever seen Pansy being nice to somebody. But it dawned on her, the realisation that nobody really wanted to be around Davis. And yet she wasn't resentful about it; she was asking Hermione about her health, instead. Hermione felt guilty that none of this crossed her mind before, and she was finally nodding when the other girls showed up.
"Hermione? Where have you been? You skipped Herbology."
Tracey Davis shuffled her feet. "Yeah. I was just asking her. About it."
Daphne looked around and asked, "Did you girls hear a sort of grunting noise?"
"So that's where the troll went," Pansy said with a mock-gasp. "Gosh, somebody better call the prefects!"
Tracey went to her bed with her shoulders hunched and her head down.
"You'd think that out of courtesy to others she'd keep out of public view," Pansy said. "Especially when she wears these muggle rags."
Possibly unfair treatment of Davis notwithstanding, Hermione was definitely too tired for this. The girls' petty bickering had a slimy feel to it—a little too Vivienne de Rippert-esque, maybe. "I don't think you should judge people by their clothes."
"You're too naive, Hermione," said Daphne. "These things matter. Would you go to classes with your robes wide open, for example? The next thing you know you'll be dressing like a Weasley."
"Whatever—if I'm not being too rude, I think I want to get some sleep. Busy day tomorrow, what with being off today."
The following day was, indeed, busy. Hermione heard back from her family. Lucas was both envious and proud, Ariel's note said that 'Samhain's an auspicious day for your first fight' and 'No worries, I've talked down your father from storming the school' and Hermione wondered if she ought to be worried about that. Word of the troll incident had already spread everywhere in the castle. Wherever she went, people pointed at her and murmured something about toilet water. Pansy had laughed so hard about the whole thing she'd risked losing whatever little sanity she had, Daphne had opined the school should let their parents know about it—because it was quite serious, wasn't it?—and like Malfoy, Blaise was of the opinion it was a pity the Gryffindors got out of it unscathed.
Not only the Gryffindors were safe and sound—they were thrilled by the adventure. Hermione had a growing suspicion that they were always happiest in the midst of mayhem. They were waiting for her in the dungeons before their potions lesson, lurking in a way that could give the Bloody Baron a run for his money.
"We wanted to say," Harry started. "Thanks for getting us out of trouble like that, yesterday."
"It was the right thing to do." Hermione'd made their problem with McGonagall her problem, just as they'd made her problem with the troll their problem. Least she could do.
"Right, you should be thanking us," Ron said shortly. "We saved your life."
"You locked me in there," Hermione snapped back. "We're even!"
Harry smiled with disorienting good humour. "Yeah, bad move, that. You must be losing your touch, Ron."
"It was your idea," Ron immediately said, "and that's exactly why you will never beat me at chess."
Harry grinned over at Hermione as if they were in on a joke, and she smiled back, still not sure whether these two were good for her or not. Hopefully she won't regret saving their hides.
