May 5th 1992
Hermione swerved quickly to see a mass of billowing black robes push itself into the doors of the bathroom and give a determined grunt when it slammed with a loud bang. The brown paper in her hand was switched with a rigid wand, and a very suspicious looking Hermione Granger felt her eyebrows knit together in trepidation. An incantation nearly flickered off of her tongue when the robes turned on its heels and Hermione found herself frozen in place, her eyes drawn to deep chocolate orbs and onyx hair. It seemed that the girl was smiling at nothing as she looked up at the ceiling before she fell to the slippery tiles with a little thump, her back lying comfortably against the closed door.
Hermione stood there, hidden behind the sinks, unnoticed.
The girl was unusual, was her first thought. She wasn't someone that Hermione had seen around Hogwarts before, that was for sure, and Hermione thought that she must've been in a different year because they had never shared a class before. Her tie showed that she was a Ravenclaw and she made a mental note to ask that Luna girl if she knew who she was (though lord knows that getting a straight answer out of Loony Lovegood was no easy feat).
Upon closer inspection, Hermione saw that the girl looked tired and sweaty but her dark eyes held the same familiar glint that she knew lived in permanent residence in Fred and George's own eyes—mischief. Hermione wondered if she just attracted troublemakers because they did seem to find her one way or another and this girl was definitely no different.
"Do I have something on my face?" said the voice in her ear.
Hermione was immediately snapped out from her over-analysing and blushed at being caught. She coughed, "no."
The girl merely nodded at her and, ignoring Hermione's still pointed wand, raised her hand up and wiggled her fingers like she was playing an imaginary piano, wordlessly asking the witch to come and help her off of the floor. She did, hesitantly, after lowering her wand and frowning when the girl smiled at her again.
"What are you doing here?" she found herself asking. It was a stupid question, she chastised herself, thinking that despite its abandoned state, the bathroom was still a public one.
"Could ask you the same thing, little one."
Her ears perked up at the unfamiliar lilt in the girl's voice. It was crisp and unusual and Hermione, with all her Geographical expertise, couldn't pin-point where her accent was from.
Hermione watched as the older girl made her way to the least-shattered sink and splashed cold water onto her sweaty face. The girl squinted at her through the grimy mirror between cool splashes. Her gaze was unwavering, Hermione noticed, and had a strange hold on the frizzy-haired witch. She gave an involuntary gulp.
"Don't you know ghosts haunt this bathroom?" she smirked, finally.
"It's only Myrtle," Hermione huffed, arms crossed. She had had enough experiences with Hogwarts ghosts today and didn't really care for having to deal with another right now. "And it's not like she's anything to be afraid of," she muttered.
That earned her a little chuckle from the girl and a small smile; it made Hermione's hands sweat in confused nervousness and the grip on her wand tightened.
"I've seen you here before," the girl said so nonchalantly, but Hermione's heart began to beat frantically in her ribcage all the same. She seemed so strangely threatening even as Hermione saw her using her robe to wipe the dribbling water from her forehead, before moving to the door again.
"I—"
"Don't worry," she said, giving her another smile as she leant an ear against the white wood of the door. Hermione, abandoning her wand by her bag, gave the stranger a weird look when she saw her stroke the doorframe, as if it was a pet that needed soothing.
She really was mad, Hermione thought.
"I won't tell Snape that you've been brewing Polyjuice— not bad for a first year though, I'll give you that."
Hermione was suddenly brought back to the her talk with Snape that very morning and she frowned. He had told her that she was rubbish at potions and, truth be told, it had hurt Hermione to hear it. Though he had been more civil in those few minutes that he had ever been to her in her two years at Hogwarts, his insult had still offended her and had dampened her already sombre mood that morning. The hurt had only dimmed when he offered to help her and what was pain had quickly turned into confusion. After her talk with Snape, she was starting to think that maybe she really was bad at potions. Sure, she had successfully made Polyjuice, but it wasn't exactly perfect and it most likely wasn't up to his impossibly high standards anyway. Plus, it probably wouldn't do her any good to tell him of her feat when she ended up turning into a half breed cat now would it?
Hermione huffed again at that. "I'm a second year," she corrected haughtily. And, though a frown graced her face, her cheeks reddened at the sincere compliment.
To her surprise though, the girl seemed content at ignoring her little outburst and continued to stroke the door. Hermione was about to call her out on her strange actions when she heard the small chant leave the girl's lips and her eyes deepened in concentration. When she was done, she sighed and gave Hermione a little wink before whipping out her wand and pointing it at Hermione's throat.
"You saw none of that," she said, pressing down lightly at the little witch's jugular. Her voice was peculiarly warm, but her eyes were a contrasting cold and hardened the longer Hermione kept her mouth shut. The glint in her eye was back and in full force and Hermione no longer thought that it was mischievous. No, it was poisonous.
Hermione found herself suddenly cowering at the girl's infuriating smile and all she could do was nod slowly at the strange turn of events in hopes that maybe the girl would lower her wand and let her leave in one piece. She had never had a wand pointed at her before, and it frightened her. A part of her wanted to reach for her own wand but she had stupidly left it besides her bag near the sinks and it was completely out of reach. This girl was a walking contradiction and after seeing her demonstrate wandless magic, Hermione had an inkling that being on the other end of her wand wasn't going to end well for her if she didn't comply.
"I won't tell Snape about your strange affinity for banned brews, and you won't tell anyone of what happened here. Correct?" It wasn't really a question. They both acknowledged the threatening tone that she had taken on and Hermione simply nodded again, feeling her throat grate uncomfortably against the stiff stick.
When the wand finally lowered to the girl's side, a sudden rush of much-needed air entered Hermione's lungs as she took in a hearty intake of breath. Her panic only subsided marginally.
"Nuttal," the smiling girl finally introduced. Her wand was tucked behind her ear and suddenly the toothy girl looked immediately less threatening than she had been just a few seconds before.
Hermione found herself doing mental backflips around the girl's strange mood swings. However, she still took Nuttal's outstretched hand and then immediately paled. She paled not at that deadly glint in the girl's eyes, the feel of her frozen hand in her own, or the sharp edge of the wand still pointing at her through Nuttal's thick nest of hair. No, she paled when she saw what was behind Nuttal. Hermione froze as she caught a glimpse of the unmistakable flash of a reptile's copper scales reflect in the murky puddles of toilet water on the floor of the abandoned girl's bathroom. She immediately knew that she had to act fast.
She reached into her pockets and sighed in relief as she felt the cool glass of her small pocket mirror. It was the same mirror that her mother had been fixing her lipstick in when a wailing Hermione had come home from school one day in tears after the muggle children at her primary school had tormented her relentlessly about her large front teeth and her frizzy hair. It was the same mirror that her mother had handed a hiccoughing, red-cheeked, tear-stained Hermione. It was the same mirror that her mother made her look into as she pointed out each one of the little seven-year-old Hermione's features and called her beautiful before kissing her cheek and telling her to keep it "as a reminder". And it was the same mirror that she had been carrying around with her the moment that she had discovered the pattern of the Basilisk's attacks and, in her own paranoia, had decided was the best act of precaution for herself. It was this mirror that would hopefully be her lifeline. And, if so, she would go back home and immediately thank her mother's vanity and kindness, and her bully's relentlessness. She survived last year and she definitely intended to survive this year too, after all.
A part of her wanted to be selfish and leave Nuttal to her own devices, but she knew that she could never do that to someone. Not when they were in the very same room that housed the victim of the monster's own attacks. No, she was not that sadistically cruel. So instead, she found herself edging closer and closer to the tall girl, mirror in hand. Then, taking her eyes off of the rippling scales curling its way closer to its prey, she looked at the girl quickly with wide, terrified eyes and apologised, lifting the mirror with a small scream.
It was the last thing either girl heard before everything went completely blank.
Hello you beautiful beings! Please leave any questions you have in a review and I'll try to answer them in the next chapter! Or just leave a review and make my heart swell to unbelievable proportions and make my day, that would be brilliant thanks!
Leonix2009: Thank you for your review— you are so sweet! As for the gift, I guess you'll have to wait a bit longer to see what it is!
SereniteRose: It's not completely a Hermione Granger AU as it does still include cannon events but yes, I guess it ultimately it is. Hermione doesn't have more or less power than she usually does—she's a pretty powerful witch anyway hehe. As for the gift, well, you'll just have to find out in the next chapter…
