A/N: Hello! Welcome to chapter Nineteen!

Love Always,

Eli x

Disclaimer: I do not own the works herein, all characters from the Harry Potter Universe belong to JK Rowling, and all characters, storylines, situations, plots and the like do not belong to me. I make no money from this work.

Warnings: Rated M for situations, swearing, violence, sexual scenes... The whole lot, basically. Dumbledore Bashing, too. Severus doesn't have the best time, bless him.

The Ghost of Grimmauld Place

Chapter Nineteen

Monday 4th September 1972

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Great Hall

Hermione found herself quickly overwhelmed by Hogwarts, all of its grandeur and bustle, and most of all the sheer number of students. Sharing a room wasn't something she was accustomed to – even if she'd experienced it in her old life, which seemed likely, she'd had over a year of peace and absolute silence in her room at the Manor, and readjusting to company wasn't likely to happen in a day. It seemed that from the second she woke up in the morning she was surrounded by people and chatter, a situation she couldn't stand, as she'd never been much of a morning person. At least nobody made the effort to speak directly to her; Fawcett and Shepherd spared her disdainful looks over the top of their morning ablutions without actual words, and Marlene appeared like nothing so much as a sleepwalker when they made their way down to the hall.

"How did you sleep?" A mischievous looking James asked as she folded herself into her seat. She glared up at him through a curtain of messy black waves. "Not well, huh?" he said, pressing closer, his white teeth shining demonically.

"I swear to Morgana, James Charlus Potter, if you don't back up right now-"

"Did princess not sleep well?" Sirius asked then, flopping onto the bench beside her. She favoured him with a growl, and he reached out to scruff her hair. "There, there, love. It gets better."

"Shut up," she groaned, reaching for the platter of scrambled eggs. It wasn't her favourite dish, but it was closest, and after a night of tossing and turning she wasn't sure she could reach much farther than that without passing out on the table. On the other side of her, Marlene stirred, making a grunting noise. Hermione handed the eggs over, and Marlene dumped half of the tray on her plate, only to then stare at it uncomprehendingly.

"Who's this?" James asked, eyeing Marlene askance. Marlene flipped her eyes up to watch him through her fringe, and dismissed him after a second to go back to her egg contemplation.

"Marlene McKinnon, this is my brother, James Potter," Hermione said with all the formality she could muster. Marlene shrugged, finally picking up her fork.

"Right," she mumbled. "Brother." She reached out and dragged a platter of bacon across the table so that it was right next to her plate, and started to load rashers across on her fork. She dropped a few pieces onto Hermione's plate and went back to eating. A boy from a few seats down put out his hand to grab some for himself, only to yelp when he found Marlene's fork skewering his hand. "Mine," she spat, huddling further over the plates.

James raised an eyebrow at Hermione. "Well," he said slowly. "It's nice to see you're making friends."

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Charms Classroom

Luckily for everybody, Marlene warmed up to the world after a few hours, finally managing more than one-word sentences just in time for her to tackle their first lesson. Charms, Hermione knew, could be tricksy, and you had to be up to paying complete attention as the slightest twitch of the wand could turn your levitation charm into a blasting hex. She was grateful to see that their charms teacher, while young, was a master in his field, and had almost a decade of intermittent teaching beneath his belt. She also recognised him from Old Hermione's time at Hogwarts, and the surge of warmth she felt for Professor Flitwick was reassuring. Old Hermione, she was learning, could be a terrific judge of character.

They were paired with the Slytherins for this lesson, which led to the predictable school hall posturing; disgraceful that despite their having less than twenty-four hours here in the school, the rivalries had already established themselves. It couldn't be at all healthy. Determined not to play into the stereotype, Hermione shifted herself so as to be just over the invisible battle lines, and smiled at Regulus. Marlene, who'd followed, sized him up blatantly.

"Morning."

Regulus jumped, looking around skittishly as if Prefects were about to jump in and take points for just being spoken to. "What are you doing?" he hissed back, panic written on his face. Some of the other Slytherins turned around at his question, their eyes alight in curiosity as they landed on Hermione and Marlene.

"Just saying hello," Hermione responded, her voice a bit smaller as she tried not to feel offended. He looked at her like she'd just sprouted an extra head. "What?"

"You're a Gryffindor," Regulus said, as though she was a bit slow. "I'm a Slytherin."

Brow furrowed, Hermione tried to work out his point. "And?"

He gave her a bemused look and opened his mouth to reply, but the classroom door opened and people began filing in. He looked at her again with confusion, shaking his head, and followed the group in. Hermione glanced at Marlene for an explanation, but she just shrugged.

Inside, Regulus had disappeared into the ranks of the Slytherins and when she saw him again he was seated at the opposite side of the room. With a sigh, Hermione took a seat between Marlene and a male Gryffindor she thought might have been called Christian, from a half-blood family. He smiled at her when she sat down, and then turned to chat with his roommate on the opposite side.

Professor Flitwick, she found, was equally as endearing now as he had been back then. Lecturing from a pile of old Charms textbooks, he looked out over the class with warm eyes behind his spectacles, and was perfectly happy to both ask and answer questions from the class. Hermione found that she knew most of the answers, but thought that perhaps this came from an unfair advantage over the others, and therefore resolved to give the other students a chance. She kept her hands clasped in her lap with great effort, especially when the other students showed reluctance to get involved. One or two of the students – not only Slytherins, Hermione noted with interest, but also Emily Fawcett, who appeared to take issue with anything purely magical – showed distaste for their half-goblin tutor, though they said nothing aloud at any time during the class.

When the last half-hour was dedicated to a practical application of their lecture, Hermione was unsurprised to note that nobody managed the spell first time, and in the interests of not garnering praise where none was due – and also, of hopefully heading off any resentment the other students might harbour should she prove herself to be as proficient as she was – Hermione cast her charm with a limp wrist, then an incorrect incantation, and then a completely wrong wand movement, all of which she chose quite carefully so as not to cause too much damage.

Marlene, beside her, grumbled and stabbed at the candle they were attempting to light, eventually kicking the table in frustration. All of the students' candles then fell to the ground, and Marlene found herself with no additional fans. In fact, they were the first out of the classroom, despite Hermione's hope that she might be able to stick around and talk to Regulus, because the glares Marlene had garnered from the other students had escalated to quite threatening levels.

Friday 8th September 1972

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Library

The first week passed quickly in a haze of new people, new lessons, new homework, new teachers. It had quickly become clear that Hermione and Marlene would have no opportunities to see or speak to Dorcas during lessons, and the one time Marlene had sat at the Ravenclaw table Professor McGonagall had swooped down impressively quickly to set her straight. They were allowed to sit with Dorcas at breakfast, Professor McGonagall had explained, but at lunch and dinner we were relegated back to our own Houses. Even she had seemed perturbed by the segregation when questioned further, but rather than answer their questions, she'd instead said 'two points from Gryffindor for insubordination' in a frosty tone.

Hermione had the distinct impression that she wasn't pleased with her own response to their inquiry, if the way she had glared at the Headmaster for the rest of the lesson had anything to do with it. There were unpleasant undertones in the air that Hermione couldn't quite understand yet, from both students and teachers. Something nebulous and dark waited in the shadows, and Professor McGonagall's staunch dismissal of their concerns only heightened the feeling - which the teacher seemed to understand. Still, her primary concern was that she and Marlene missed Dorcas, so they searched for a way around these complications.

Hermione had also been spending less and less time with James as time wore on. The first weekend before school had started, she had spent her time either with Marlene and Dorcas in the Hall or the Library or even in one of the chilly, deserted courtyards around the grounds, or sat in Gryffindor Tower with James and his friends, even the creepy Peter Pettigrew, playing Exploding Snap or Wizard's Chess or simply lying around and talking into the evening. As the two siblings got more involved in their work and their friends, however, this time had narrowed down to nothing. They would sit close by one another at breakfast and chat then, if what Hermione did before she'd eaten could even be classified as chatting, but cosy nights in the common room had gone out of the window as he and his cohort worked on homework and pranks and she tried to integrate herself into Hogwarts.

It was both their faults, and Hermione didn't hold a grudge. Even if they couldn't spend so much time together, they'd find each other on the weekends, and even if that didn't happen, she knew James would be there for her if she needed him just as she would be for James.

Besides, he had his friends, and he didn't need a little sister hanging off of him all the time. Hermione could understand that. She was making friends of her own – or at least acquaintances. She'd met Alice Brown, Frank Longbottom, Lily Evans and Mary McDonald from James's year and they all got along quite well. She'd also met Pandora Lovegood, a Ravenclaw girl who had literally changed her own name to that of the boy she quite fancied, because 'we'll be married, you'll see'. Hermione was inclined to back away slowly from her, and never show up again, but Marlene and Dorcas found her delightful and as such Hermione had been dragged along for the ride, despite her deep discomfort. Why her parents, whoever they were, had allowed their child to do such a thing was beyond Hermione's understanding.

Rue Shafiq had eventually returned to their dormitory. She didn't talk much, but she was eloquent in what she didn't say – she refused to even look at Emily Fawcett, as though looking at her would infect the quiet girl with the half-blood's particular brand of lunacy. In the case of Marlene, Rue would give her sharp glares when she got too loud or too brash, and Marlene would reel it in. Hermione had the bed next to Rue, was paired with her in Potions, and sat beside her in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and yet she'd never heard her say a word.

Silence, however, was golden in Hermione's world, so she was inclined to like her.

Their last lesson on Friday was Potions, and Hermione's robes were wet from where Shepherd had 'accidentally' spilled her potion over her as she'd crossed to give her potion to Professor Slughorn. Luckily, neither Shepherd nor her partner Michael Higgins were any good at the subject, and their adding of diced rat spleen rather than minced toad (an easy mistake to make, if you can't read) had rendered their entire concoction harmless rather than abrasive. It was still uncomfortable to walk around with damn robes, but Professor Slughorn hadn't stirred himself to clean them for her, and she didn't have time to make it back to Gryffindor tower before she was supposed to meet Dorcas in the library that evening. Rue had given her a sympathetic look but walked away, and so Hermione was alone when she entered the library, making her way through the stacks to the alcove they'd found at the back.

It was quiet, but not silent; she could hear the low hum of noises, the scratching of quills in the background, footsteps and the soft swish of books as they were removed and replaced on shelves. She was reading, herself, lost in the intricate explanation of Red Cap behaviour she'd found in her Defence textbook, and wondering within her own mind just how much of what the Muggles consider fey was actually real, and magical. She was remembering tales from her own childhood, of pixie-like creatures that come to the door of country houses, whom you must invite in and feed and lull to sleep lest they subject you to a grisly death. Her mind supplied books she could reference in order to check on their existence, alongside Red Caps and Will-O'-the-Wisps and other creatures she knew were real.

She was so lost in her own twisting thoughts that she walked right into him without noticing. It was only when she'd stopped walking and she realised her book was on the floor that she pulled herself out of her own head and blinked up at the boy she'd run into.

"Watch where you're going," he snapped, brushing off his robes. His eyes went to Hermione's book and he jerked as though he'd started to pick it up and then thought better of it. He scowled, looking down his nose at Hermione. "That's a third year book," he pointed out, with curiosity lacing his voice where she knew, just knew, he'd meant there to be scorn.

"Hello, Snape," she said pleasantly, bending down to pick it up and folding it into her arms protectively. "How are you? My brother hasn't been giving you any more trouble, has he?"

"I can handle your brother, Potter," he sneered. Hermione let herself feel a flicker of amusement at how hard he was working to come off like he didn't like her, when he could simply have shown his indifference towards her existence to better effect. "I don't need your help."

She shrugged at that, moving around him to continue on her way. She paused though, at the last minute, and turned around to see that Snape was still stood in the centre of the aisle, watching her leave. "I'm sorry," she said sincerely.

"What?"

"For running into you," she clarified, holding up her book. "This is quite heavy, I think it would hurt to be hit by it. It's my fault, I wasn't looking where I was going, so… I'm sorry."

He paused, a frown pinching his lips as he glanced around as if searching for whoever had put her up to this. She pressed her lips together and, again, tried not to feel offended. That he didn't trust her was his problem, not hers, and she shouldn't bother herself with it. "Okay," he sounded out slowly, his narrowed eyes on her. He appeared to be looking for the punchline. Oh, well. She tried. Shooting him a polite smile, she turned on her heel and wandered off.