Next Door
St. Grogory's Primary School had a tiny library, much to seven-year-old Hermione Granger's disgust.
It was her first day at her new school, and already she was close to despair. She wandered up and down the three short aisles that made up the school library, turning her nose in dignified rejection of the selection of bland children's books around her.
Three aisles! The libraries in London had whole floors of books, and all of them were more interesting than these!
Where was Brian Jacques? Terry Pratchett? Asimov, Clarke, and Twain? Surely the other children in this school were starving for something a bit more compelling.
But, as she'd discovered earlier in the day, nobody else seemed to care. The other kids had looked bored out of their minds when she'd introduced herself in class and listed her favourite authors. Only the teacher had made an effort to look interested: her wide, toothy smile about as sincere as a copper wedding ring.
That was why, in her growing misery, she had shunned her classmates and snuck into the library during lunch in search of something redeeming about her new situation.
It wasn't going very well.
The sound of quick, light footsteps broke her out of a glaring contest with a copy of Kids Books for Dummies. A boy with messy black hair and glasses darted into the library, gave her half a glance, and ducked into one of the aisles.
Just as she was about to reprimand him for running indoors, more footsteps came from the hall outside the library. They were heavier, angrier, and told of a group rather than an individual.
A boy with thick blonde hair skidded to a halt at the open doorway of the library.
"Hey, new kid!" he called, jerking his chin at Hermione. "Have you seen a little speckled git around here?"
Hermione raised her chin, affronted at being called a kid. "No, I haven't. And you shouldn't run indoors."
The boy snorted at her before racing away, his friends close behind.
She turned at the sound of rustling clothes behind her.
"Thanks," said the black-haired boy, giving her a wide smile. Up close, she could see he was quite skinny, and wore clothes that were clearly too large for him. Behind his glasses – which were held together by tape – green eyes shone with delight.
"You're welcome," Hermione sniffed. "You know, if you're getting bullied by those boys, you should tell a teacher."
He gave her a weird look, like she was crazy, and slipped past her, heading into the hall in the opposite direction of his pursuers.
When the bell rang and Hermione returned to class, she was surprised to find the bullied boy shared her class. He was sitting on his own near the back, and it was clear from the body language of neighbouring students that he was something of an outcast. He didn't seem to mind all that much, if the smile he sent her way upon spotting her was anything to go by, but still…
At the end of the day, as the students rushed out the door, Hermione took her time packing away her things in order to catch the teacher alone. Mrs Sunfield was a good enough teacher, though she let the rowdier boys get away with too much, in Hermione's opinion.
"Hermione," Mrs Sunfield said kindly, "What can I help you with?"
"I would like to report some bullying I saw during lunch," Hermione said politely.
"Oh." The teacher frowned. "What happened?"
"I saw Dudley Dursley and a few of the other boys chasing Harry Potter at lunchtime." She had paid attention during class to make sure she got the names right. Harry didn't get called on to answer a question often, but he was always right. For some reason, that made her want to take his side.
The teacher relaxed a little, giving her an empty smile. "They're cousins, Hermione. They've probably been romping around and using each other as punching bags since they were babies."
Hermione frowned. Cousins? They barely even looked at each other during class, and she'd even seen a few paper balls thrown at Harry from his cousin.
But maybe she was overthinking it. It was her first day, and she was probably just looking for a distraction from how lacking her new school was.
"It's great of you to be looking out for your classmates on your first day," Mrs Sunfield said. "I know it must be hard coming to a new school and trying to make new friends, but I'm sure if you keep being as kind and conscientious as you were today, you won't have any trouble."
Hermione nodded and turned to leave, only to be stopped at the door by the teacher saying her name. When she looked back, Mrs Sunfield was wearing an expression she hadn't seen once during class. It brought out the beginnings of wrinkles on her face and made her look older.
"Maybe… Maybe you could try befriending Harry," said the teacher. "He doesn't talk a lot, but I think I've seen him reading during recess and lunch, so maybe you'd enjoy comparing books?"
Something about the request seemed off, and Hermione didn't understand the shame on Mrs Sunfield's face, but she nodded anyway.
She never could resist going the extra mile in class.
Hermione's new home was significantly better than her new school.
They'd moved to Surrey to escape the bustle of London, finding a certain amount of comfort in the ordered peace of Privet Drive, even if it was a bit dull. It was the perfect place to raise a thoughtful child like Hermione, who had often whined about the noise of traffic interrupting her reading.
As she climbed out of her mother's green Volvo, heaving her bulging school bag onto her back once more for the short trip to the door, Hermione noticed something that put an end to her depressing retelling of the day's events.
There, in the driveway of the house left of Hermione's, Harry Potter stood, caught in the same motion as Hermione with his schoolbag halfway to his shoulder. Dudley, the 'cousin' and a probable bully, didn't notice the impromptu staring contest as he raced inside, leaving his bag for his mother (or Harry's mother?) to pick up.
Harry wandered over to the low fence separating the properties, his bag hanging from one hand. Hermione copied him out of surprise more than anything else. How many times was she going to run into the same person in the same day?
"Hello again," Harry said with a quick grin.
"I'm Hermione Granger," she blurted, a little off-guard. She stuck a hand across the picket fence.
Harry blinked at her hand, then shook it gladly. "Harry Potter."
"We're in the same class at St. Grogory's," Hermione said obviously.
"Yeah," Harry nodded. "Thanks for the help today. I didn't want them to find me in the library. Too many heavy things to throw."
Hermione folded her arms crossly. "So they were bullying you! The teacher said you were cousins and were always 'romping' with each other. Why didn't you tell her?"
Harry gave her that look again, the one that made her feel like she was being silly. "Because I'm the one who has to go home with him. I'd just be making more trouble for myself if I dobbed on him."
By now, both Hermione's mother and Harry's maybe-mother had noticed their charges had strayed from the car instead of going inside. They spotted the kids, and each other, and moved to meet each other at the fence, just as Harry and Hermione had.
"Hello," Hermione's mother said warmly, reaching out to shake the other woman's hand. For some reason, Harry's potential-mother seemed a bit nervous, and her smile looked as fake as Mrs Sunfield's. "Emma Granger. My husband Dan, Hermione, and I moved in a few days ago."
"Oh, what a delight to meet you! Petunia Dursley, and my husband is Vernon," said Mrs Dursley.
So, not Harry's mum then, Hermione thought. So where were his parents?
Mrs Dursley had one hand gripping Harry's shoulder. He was wincing in pain, but she didn't seem to notice. For that matter, why wasn't Harry saying anything? He just stood there silently.
"Honey, do you want to go put your things away?" said Hermione's mother, handing her the keys. It was one of those questions that wasn't really a question, so Hermione took the keys with a sigh.
"See you at school tomorrow, Harry," she said over her shoulder.
"Yeah. Sure," the boy replied quietly.
Over the next few weeks, Hermione fell into a routine at school and at home. Her mother had told her that Mrs Dursley was very strict and Harry wasn't allowed to play with other kids very often.
Hermione had said that wasn't so bad, since she liked reading more than playing anyway.
Her mother's answering smile had been strangely sad. "It is if he wants to," she said.
At school, they began sitting together and meeting in the library at lunch. Whenever Dudley and his friends came looking, Hermione would tell them she was alone as always.
Hermione soon found herself quite happy to spend lunch with Harry. He was very bright, though he hadn't read as much as her, and he was quick and funny, especially when describing his cousin's eating habits.
Outside of school, they were relegated to no more than a wave whenever they left for school or arrived home at the same time.
That was, until Hermione noticed something.
Harry worked in his aunt's garden on the weekends. Hermione watched from her bedroom on the second floor as he dutifully tackled a patch of weeds at the back of the garden behind a large frangipani bush. The fence closest to him was shared with Hermione's yard, and that gave her an idea.
A few minutes later, kneeling in the soil beside her mother's roses, Hermione listened to the sound of tugging and scraping coming through a crack in the fence.
"Harry?" she said tentatively. Something thudded to the ground.
"…Hermione?" a voice replied a moment later.
"I saw you working in the garden, so I thought we could talk through the fence," she explained.
"Oh. Great." Harry did that sometimes. When he was surprised, he used single word responses.
"So what are you doing?" Hermione pressed.
"Weeding?" Harry replied, sounding a bit bewildered.
And so a new part of their routine was born.
Waving hello in the morning before school, working together in class, chatting all through lunch, and spending weekends sitting on opposite sides of a fence was all they both knew of friendship.
At school, sometimes Dudley and his gang wouldn't pick on Harry if Hermione was with him. Harry said it was because Mrs Dursley had told him not to because she didn't want Hermione's parents to think Dudley was a bully.
Hermione learned a lot about her new friend. When Harry casually told her that he was an orphan, she'd burst into tears, her back shuddering against the fence as Harry hurriedly tried to assure her that it was okay, even though it wasn't. With a bit of patience, Hermione managed to draw out more and more information about Harry's life with the Dursleys, and every new fact made her angrier. She couldn't believe that the nicest boy she'd ever met was living under such injustice, such unfairness.
Ranting to her parents about it produced interesting results. The first few times, they had laughed, thinking she was joking, but over time enough detail was added to the picture of Harry's life that they began reacting very differently whenever she brought it up. They often exchanged tight, pained expressions, and Hermione's father would sometimes stop eating if she talked about it during a meal, claiming to have lost his appetite.
On the surface, Emma Granger maintained a cordial relationship with Petunia Dursley, sometimes sharing a coffee or just a few words over the fence when they got home from school. But sometimes, late at night, when Hermione was supposed to be in bed, she overheard her mother saying some truly horrid things about the other woman, and her father didn't offer much in the way of disagreement.
School ended suddenly and the summer holidays began. Harry had told Hermione that the Dursleys were going on holiday, which had filled her with fear until he mentioned that he would be staying with an old lady across the street.
"It'll be perfect!" Hermione told her parents happily one morning. "He'll be able to actually come over if his aunt and uncle aren't around."
If she had been a bit older, she might have recognised the devious looks her parents gave each other.
That afternoon, Daniel Granger told Hermione the good news. Harry would be staying with them while the Dursleys were away! Apparently it had taken Emma most of the day to convince Petunia to allow it, which included making up such lies as 'we run a very disciplined household' and 'Harry won't be bored, he'll be helping Hermione with her daily chores'. It was almost like she had to convince Petunia that Harry wouldn't be allowed to have fun before the woman came around to the idea.
The day the Dursleys left for the airport, Harry stood with the Grangers and half-heartedly waved them off. The second the car was out of sight, Hermione snatched Harry's hand and led him inside, grinning from ear to ear.
The whole first day was spent watching cartoons, playing games, browsing the Granger's impressive home library, and eating far too much junk food. Hermione knew Harry well enough to know he didn't get emotional very often, but when he shyly thanked her parents for letting him stay, his eyes were gleaming. Hermione's heart felt very full.
The next day continued the new pattern of fun and freedom, at least until a visitor arrived at midday. A kind-looking woman met her parents and knelt down to shake Harry and Hermione's hands. At some point, Hermione was led away by her father, and they played chess in her bedroom while Harry spoke with the two women downstairs. Eventually, the woman left, and the kids resumed their day without missing a beat.
The day after, Emma and Dan took them both to the doctors, declaring it was time for a check-up. At first they all went in together, but once Emma and Hermione were done, they went back out to the waiting room so the boys could 'have a man-to-man talk'. Hermione swung her feet impatiently, annoyed at this unnecessary distraction from her and Harry's perfect summer.
The woman who visited came by again a few days later, and there was another pointless trip to the doctor's. Her parents looked increasingly weird these days, like they were hungry animals, full of anxious energy and desperately trying to get something done before any other animals found out.
Harry didn't seem all that bothered by the attention, just confused and thoughtful. He shrugged whenever Hermione asked him what he was talking about with the doctor and the nice woman.
"Home stuff," he said, before returning his attention to the book they were reading together.
At mealtimes, little vitamins were suddenly being placed alongside the actual meals, which themselves seemed a lot healthier than the family usually ate. They weren't junk food addicts or anything, but they had never had such a clean diet before. Not only that, but every time they ate, Harry was encouraged to have seconds and thirds, and to never be afraid to ask for something when he was hungry.
When they said that, Harry wasn't the only one who looked confused. Hermione wished her parents would stop being so weird around her friend, but they seemed determined to embarrass her.
A couple of weeks into the holidays, some police went into the Dursley's house. The nice woman was there, and, strangely enough, the family doctor. Harry and Hermione watched from Hermione's bedroom window as Emma and Dan spoke to the small group. At one point, they all turned to look up at where the kids were spying on them, and the pair quickly ducked down to avoid being spotted.
"What do you think they're doing?" Hermione whispered, even though there was no way the adults could hear them from the Dursley's front yard.
"I don't know," Harry said, whispering too, "But I can't wait to see Aunt Petunia's face when she realises the whole neighbourhood saw the police break into her house."
The Dursleys were due to arrive back tomorrow, and Hermione felt terrible. What should have been their last full day of fun together was ruined when the nice lady arrived along with some men in suits and a police officer.
They must have been talking for hours, and Hermione was beside herself with curiosity. Her parents had calmed down recently, and even as young as she was, she knew something was going on.
Finally, she couldn't take it anymore and stormed downstairs, determined to burst into the living room and demand to know who they thought they were to steal her friend away from his last day of freedom. She was stopped in her tracks at the bottom of the stairs, as the group was on the way out, and each of them wore a different expression.
The nice lady beamed at her, the men in suits were serious but spared her a friendly greeting each, and the police officer had a vaguely satisfied air about him as he ruffled Hermione's hair and strode after the others.
The door to the living room was open, and Hermione peeked inside to see Harry rubbing at his eyes with a tissue. Dan had a hand on Harry's shoulder and was squeezing it comfortingly. Emma was kneeling at Harry's height and had two wet splotches on her shoulder, where Harry's head had presumably been moments before. For that matter, her parents looked a bit misty-eyed themselves.
Hermione was fit to explode with worry, so when she darted into the room and flung her arms around Harry, she accidentally performed a spectacular body-check and slammed both Harry and herself into the side of the sofa. She sprained her wrist and Harry fractured his collarbone, and it wasn't until they were both leaving the emergency room at the local hospital, Harry's arm in a sling and Hermione's wrist wrapped up in ice packs, that she learned Harry was going to be living with them from now on.
Neither of the kids witnessed it, but when the Dursleys returned from their holiday to New York, refreshed and relaxed and looking forward to spending the remainder of their time off work and school getting Harry to do a few odd jobs around the house, they were greeted at the airport by police officers.
If Harry had witnessed it, he would have treasured the memory of Petunia's face when she was informed that her house had been searched by the police.
Harry's new bedroom was next to Hermione's on the second floor, with a connecting bathroom between them. At first the Grangers weren't sure about how much Harry would mind seeing his old house (now for sale) out his window, but it turned out he didn't mind at all.
"All the houses look the same around here, anyway," he told them with a shrug.
"Then maybe we should change that," Emma said with a mischievous smile.
Over the final week of summer, Harry and the Grangers worked as hard as they could to stick out like a sore thumb. The picket fence out front was repainted by all four of them – each using a different colour – and vines were encouraged to grow wildly all along its length. They tried to shape the hedges to look funny, but Dan eventually made the executive decision to 'get rid of the bloody thing' by ripping the hedge to pieces with a hedge trimmer. They planted garish pink and blue flamingos in its place, with no regard for style or taste.
After a while, they began making decisions by seeing how many neighbours they annoyed with each new, tasteless addition to the garden. Saplings were planted that would one day be far larger than any reasonable person would plant in their yard, and the whole endeavour drove the cost of the Dursley's old house down by a considerable margin.
Harry thought it looked fantastic, and when he and Hermione were dropped off at school (with no Dudley in sight) for the first day of the new school year, he wore a big smile knowing he was going to come home to that ridiculous house.
Without their leader, Dudley's old gang seemed to lose all interest in tormenting Harry. They even calmed down in class and actually focused on their work for once, which made Harry realise that he may not have been the only victim of Dudley's impetuous behaviour. Other kids who had been intimidated into ignoring Harry also found themselves free of his influence, and Harry and Hermione enjoyed being able to eat lunch wherever they wanted. Even Mrs Sunfield's smile seemed more sincere.
An old man appeared on Privet Drive in the dead of night. An old woman rushed out of her home across the street and stood by his side in front of a house with a 'For Sale' sign in the front yard.
"I thought they'd leave him with me when they went away," said the woman. "I didn't know they were even friends with their neighbours." She gestured at the house next door, which during the day was colourful and eccentric, but was currently a confusing mass of shadows.
The old man said nothing, waving a stick around. He let out a sigh that turned to mist in the night air. The protections he had placed on the house had disintegrated the moment the boy agreed to live with his new legal guardians. If he had kept a more watchful eye, he might have spotted the abuse himself and found a subtler way to correct the Dursley's behaviour.
As it was, while the boy was certainly happier in his new home, he was far more vulnerable to threats that went beyond simple neglect. Short of somehow finding guards willing to watch over the house for the next ten years, there were few viable options left to him.
In the end, he settled for a complex array of detection methods, inverted to keep them from being seen, and attached them all to his half-moon eyeglasses. Should a threat cross the boundary, he would immediately become aware of it.
"I have done what I can," he said quietly. "Arabella, please continue to watch over him. I am not aware of any imminent threats, but he is far too important to become complacent about his protection."
"Of course, Albus."
Years passed, happy years that made Harry sometimes wonder if his time with the Dursleys was just a nightmare that he'd had a long time ago.
He wasn't so skinny anymore, and he had a whole wardrobe full of clothes that fit, and that was just normal, he hadn't even asked for them. By the time he was ten, he was the same height as Hermione, and he was determined to overtake her.
After Emma and Dan watched a program on TV about children not getting enough exercise at school, Harry and Hermione had been forced to choose an activity. Neither of them were that into sports – though Harry was quietly intrigued by football – so they chose something practical. At first the parents thought martial arts would clash with the pair's gentle natures, but after a couple of sessions they both grew in confidence and often left the dojo with big grins on their faces. They weren't actually allowed to spar properly yet, but they were looking forward to it.
At school, with a more peaceful classroom came better results, and the pair consistently fought for top of the class.
They had never been happier.
Near the end of July, 1991, two letters arrived at the Granger's household.
Harry had been living with them for four years. There had been a period of adjustment for all of them as the family shifted to make room for one more. Harry's experiences with the Dursleys had given him two very contrasting traits: a strong spine, and endless depths of humility. For the first year or so, Emma and Dan had been reluctant to enforce discipline, even when it was needed. Harry was a child, after all, and he and Hermione often got up to all sorts of things without thinking about consequences. With his newfound confidence and freedom, some might say he developed a talent for walking the boundaries between what was acceptable and what was not.
Harry never called Emma and Dan Mum and Dad, and it felt weird to call Hermione his sister. Guardians may have been a legal term, but Harry thought it was the perfect word to describe the Grangers. As for Hermione, well, she was his first, and best, friend. In Harry's experience, friends were far more important to him than family.
The two letters that fell through the mail slot were ignored by the sleepy adults as they sipped their morning coffee, far too asleep to care about another bill or two.
Harry and Hermione were upstairs in the bathroom that connected their bedrooms. They were brushing their teeth while trying to continue a conversation, only stopping when one of them got the giggles or choked on toothpaste. The bathroom was the best part of their living arrangement, in Hermione's opinion. Even when their bedroom doors were closed and they were supposed to be asleep, they could always wander through to visit the other if they weren't tired. It wasn't an uncommon sight for Emma to come and wake them in the morning, only to find one hadn't made it back to their room, usually flopped on the end of the other's bed with open books around them.
"Not as weird as you talking to snakes," Hermione shot back around a mouthful of foam.
Harry's cheeks went red as he indignantly spat into the sink. "I did. And it talked back."
"I believe you," she said in a gurgling sing-song voice.
He dug his fingers into her ribs, causing her to shriek and expel her toothpaste across the mirror. He was laughing as she shoved him away and began wiping the mirror down.
"I always believe you when you tell me about weird stuff happening," Harry said accusingly as he retreated to his bedroom to get dressed.
"None of mine are as weird as talking to snakes," Hermione called through the open door.
"What about when we broke the mirror and you were freaking out and trying to hide it, and I went downstairs to stall Dan and Emma, but when they finally came up to see what the noise was, the mirror was completely fixed?" Harry said, appearing at the doorway again, now in jeans and a white T-shirt.
Hermione hesitated. The memory still troubled her, though it had gotten easier to dismiss as time passed. "It mustn't have been damaged like we thought. Maybe the half-frozen water balloon splattered in a way that made it look like the mirror was fractured."
"Fractured?" Harry spluttered. "There were pieces on the floor!"
They bickered all the way downstairs, only stopping to snatch up the two letters before continuing to the kitchen table.
"Since when do I get mail?" Harry said wonderingly, inspecting the envelope closely over his placemat.
"What are you two doing up so early?" groaned Dan. "I thought we'd have a few minutes of peace before the breakfast brigade marched in."
"We went to sleep early last night, so of course we woke up early," Hermione said patiently.
Harry tore open his envelope and began to read. Hermione did the same.
They showed the adults, who read the letters with slowly-rising eyebrows.
Then they all laughed, congratulated the accomplished pranksters who sent them, and went on with their breakfasts in good spirits.
Author's Notes
Just a little thing I put together. I'm still writing my other stories, I promise!
Yes, I used Dan and Emma as the names of Hermione's parents. No, I'm not afraid to die.