One: The Liar's Letter
"Time's up, put your pens down!"
The invigilator's voice echoed throughout the darkened, stiflingly hot school hall. All around Hermione, pens clattered onto the surfaces of desks, girls shifted in their chairs, and there was a collective sigh of relief. It was over. The GCSE exam season for the Year of Our Lord 2016 was finally finished, and in front of thousands of Year 11 pupils, there lay nothing but a long, hot summer.
Hermione did not move. Her pen had already been down for twenty minutes.
She handed over her answer booklet without demur to the invigilator and stood up the moment she was allowed to, stretching out her muscles. English Literature was a two-and-a-half-hour exam and it certainly felt like it to her back, which twinged in protest. Then she gathered up her pencil case and left.
Every other girl erupted into chatter the moment they left the hushed, funereal silence of the hall.
"Did you have enough time to –"
"Did you finish the -"
"Did you get how –"
Knowing that none of the questions was directed at her, Hermione went straight to her locker to collect her bag. At times like this she was glad that she had no friends to gossip with about the exam. It had not gone as well as it could have.
Certainly, it had not gone badly. She had been predicted fifteen A*s by her teachers, and she had no doubt she would get them. But she disliked English Literature excessively; all anyone ever seemed to do in fiction books was be emotional, and it was irritating. Her gift struggled with emotions. Their set text Of Mice and Men in particular was a book which was apparently saturated in emotion, or so Miss Greengage kept telling her, and Hermione's mechanical analyses of rhetorical devices never scored as highly as something which 'captured the essence of the novel' (in Miss Greengage's words) would have.
She dismissed the flash of annoyance which always sparked across her skin when she thought of her English teacher. There was no point in getting all worked up now. After all, she had taken the final English exam of her life. She would be leaving Queen Elizabeth County High School for Girls, her local grammar school, in favour of an elitist public school in September. Assuming she made the grades for her offer at Westminster School – which, of course, she would – she would embark upon A-level courses designed to prepare her for medicine applications next October. Biology, Chemistry, Maths, Further Maths, and History would all be on her timetable. English most certainly would not.
The mid-June sun beat down on Hermione's head as she left the school and made her way to the train station. A fine layer of sweat coated her back and stuck to her lilac blouse under a thick navy blazer. It was only two p.m., long before the schools in the area let out their inmates, so she had the train almost to herself as she climbed on board.
Thank God. Like most of London's other ancient Tube lines, the Northern line was utterly bereft of air conditioning and absolutely hellish when students and commuters were packed in elbow-to-elbow like sardines at rush hour. Settling herself into a padded seat well away from the handful of other passengers, Hermione opened her bag and slid out a book.
The Final Days, an account of the 1972 Watergate Scandal by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, was nearly 500 pages long with minute font. It would have taken the most dedicated reader two days to get through all of it.
Hermione placed her hand, palm down, over the closed cover, and inhaled. By the time she let her breath out again, every word of the book was imprinted in her memory.
She was not sure when she had first realised that she had a gift. Had it been in reception, when she'd astounded her parents by relating a complete summary of Lord of the Rings? Or perhaps Year 2, when she'd realised that she'd absorbed an entire biography of Lady Anne Boleyn merely by brushing her fingers over the embossed title? It was impossible to tell for certain. But in any case, the fact remained that she, Hermione Granger, in all other respects a perfectly normal middle-class sixteen-year-old girl from north London, had the ability to gain knowledge not just from reading books – but by merely touching them.
Naturally, a gift like that did wondrous things for her academic life. The information from maths, science and history textbooks fell into her head like snowflakes from the sky. But her gift had one great limitation: it failed to appropriately transmit emotion.
She knew she had feelings herself, and she could understand the literal words of emotional scenes. She was able to objectively comprehend, for instance, that George was upset at being forced to murder Lenny, or that Lenny felt shame when he accidentally killed rabbits. But subtleties escaped her, and she struggled to see how these feelings directly impacted the characters' actions. It was this lack of consideration which had always led to frustratingly reduced marks in her essays.
She'd even tried reading Of Mice and Men the proper way, page by page, to see if that helped. It didn't.
So for leisure reading she stuck to the most factual books she could find, and chomped through dates or geometrical proofs with ease. What doctor needed to read fiction anyway?
The train arrived at her own platform, Tufnell Park. Hermione stood, hitched her near-empty bag up higher on her shoulder, and began her meandering way to her house. As soon as she got home it was time to begin early revision for her A-levels. Her gift wasn't accompanied by any enhanced memory ability, so she needed to put as much effort as the next person into actually remembering what she read. She had no other plans for the summer, no friends to visit or holidays to go on, so she might as well ensure she knew every moment of the 1789 French Revolution by heart.
Her three-storey house was tall, narrow, and terraced, its deceptively limited width concealing the expansive size of the rooms within. A few anaemic weeds had sprung up between the cracked grey stones paving the front garden. Both of her parents would still be at their dental surgery, so Hermione fished out her key from her pocket and unlocked the door herself.
The low rumble of voices made her pause. They were home early, weren't they? She frowned as she heard her mother's high voice undercut by an unfamiliar burr. An alien pair of stocky, sensible leather shoes had been placed neatly beside the shoe rack.
Guests were a rare occurrence in the Granger household. Having toed off her brogues, Hermione padded soundlessly on socked feet towards the living room.
Incredibly, both her parents were indeed home – as was someone else. Hermione's gaze swept over the two Doctors Granger, both lean and dark-haired, her father in corduroys and her mother in a light sari from her native India. Then it settled on the stranger in her living room.
The woman was undoubtedly old, but it was impossible to tell precisely how much so. Though her pale skin was lined and jet-black bun was liberally threaded with silver, her green eyes glinted with sharp intelligence, and the slant of her nose was suggestive of some great bird of prey. She was dressed in a white blouse and a skirt fashioned from a single large piece of tartan cloth, secured with a giant safety pin. The woman rose as Hermione entered the room.
"Ah, you must be Hermione," she said before her parents could speak. Her accent was heavily clipped but identifiably Scottish.
"Yes, I am," Hermione said warily. She darted a lightning-fast glance at her parents. It slowly dawned at her that both looked somewhat shell-shocked.
"Excellent," the woman said briskly. "My name is Minerva McGonagall. You may call me Professor McGonagall." She offered a wrinkled hand.
"Nice to meet you," Hermione said. Her social skills were rusty, but that seemed like the right thing to say, rather than What are you a professor of? She gave McGonagall's hand a perfunctory pump and was vaguely surprised to find that the woman's grip was almost painfully firm. It was a relief to be released.
Hermione backed away and dropped into the only free seat left in the room, on the leather sofa between her parents. Her mother offered her a forced smile.
"Good exam?"
"Not too bad," she said. She kept her eyes on McGonagall, who had settled back into her armchair and was watching them with her fingers steepled.
The living room was filled with two things: light and books. The afternoon sunlight radiated down through the wide windows, directly into Hermione's eyes, forcing her to hunch slightly to avoid being blinded. McGonagall smiled slightly at the sight.
"Well, Hermione, I've never believed in beating about the bush," she said. "You have a gift. For want of a better word, a magical gift. Yes?"
Hermione stiffened. Except for her parents, nobody knew about that. "Yes," she said cautiously. Had she given herself away at school somehow? Had McGonagall come to perform governmental tests on her? The muscles of her legs tensed unconsciously.
"Could you describe your gift to me?" McGonagall asked.
Hermione shot a look at her father. He smiled reassuringly at her, pushing his glasses higher up his nose as they slid down. "Go on, sweetheart," he said.
Haltingly, Hermione began. "I can… absorb written knowledge," she said. "I put my hand on a book, and after a moment or two, it's like I've read it – even though I haven't turned a single page."
McGonagall nodded, unsurprised, and Hermione realised that she had already known this. "Have you noticed any limitations to your gift?" she asked. "Things about it which trip you up?"
"I'm not very good at understanding the emotional motivations of fictional characters," Hermione admitted.
McGonagall smoothed down her tartan skirt. "Yes, that sounds about right. Our gifts always come with a catch," she said. "Well, Hermione, no doubt you're wondering exactly who I am. I am an employee of MI6."
Hermione waited patiently for the punchline. McGonagall stared back expectantly.
No punchline appeared to be forthcoming. Her father coughed delicately. "We believe she's telling the truth, sweetheart," he said. "I realise this is uncomfortably reminiscent of – of James Bond, and all that sort of thing, rather like a joke in poor taste, but she's convinced us."
"Has she," Hermione said. Her voice was flat with disbelief.
"Your suspicions are entirely natural," McGonagall said. "Allow me to allay them."
She turned into a cat.
Hermione choked and jerked backwards. Where the human woman had been sitting was now a large, fluffy ginger feline, its eyes the same intelligent emerald, with odd markings around them a bit like spectacles. The cat looked at her coolly for a long moment. Then Hermione blinked. When she opened her eyes, McGonagall was back in the armchair, regarding Hermione with identical eyes.
"Well?" she said.
Hermione swallowed drily and looked at her parents again. They looked strained but not surprised, meaning the professor had already done this in front of them.
"Well, I certainly believe you have a gift," Hermione said. "But I don't see what this has to do with MI6."
"The government is aware that a small percentage of individuals in the country are born with a variety of gifts," McGonagall explained. Her pink tongue flickered out daintily to wet her lips, the most catlike move she had made so far. "You will only rarely see two gifts the same. Each one is important, and represents an invaluable chance to assist the country in protecting itself and others from the growing extremism threat. I am sure a girl as intelligent as you is fully acquainted with the news."
Hermione nodded silently. Extremism was certainly on the rise, in both the East and West of the world. Only last Friday, she had been dealt a staggering blow with the victory of Brexit's Vote Leave campaign, Britain's first truly post-truth, populist movement. Meanwhile in America, an equally post-truth and populist Donald Trump appeared likely to be voted the next president in November. Terrorist attacks in France and Germany had also added to the generally tense atmosphere.
"The world is currently balanced on a knife edge," McGonagall said. "MI6 needs special agents now more than ever. And that is where you, and people like you, come in. All over the country, gifted sixteen-year-olds are being informed of the existence of the Hogwarts School, a sixth-form boarding college up in Scotland, where teenagers with powers are trained to become Aurors – that is, special agents for MI6." She looked at Hermione expectantly.
Hermione did not often laugh, but she felt the urge to do so now, hysterical giggles rising up in her throat. This was insane. A sixth form just for magical teenagers? Run by MI6? In Scotland? It was like some badly written novel, one of those repulsively emotional ones she disliked so much.
A line from a Sherlock Holmes story – one of the few fiction books Hermione had been able to truly understand and enjoy – abruptly drifted through her head.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
She discreetly pinched herself. Not a dream. So that was out. She had certainly seen McGonagall turn into a cat; more importantly, so had her parents, and it was highly unlikely that the event had been some sort of mass hallucination. Grangers were not the type to hallucinate.
And after all, she did have a gift she knew was scientifically impossible. Why couldn't she believe in more impossible things, like a cat-shifting MI6 agent inviting her to a secret Scottish school?
"What happens at Hogwarts, precisely?" her mother asked suddenly. "You hadn't quite gotten to that bit when Hermione got home."
"Training," McGonagall said laconically before expanding. "We will teach you how to harness your skills and become an asset to both the state and yourself. I don't deny it will be difficult. As I said, very few people have the same gifts as someone else, and all gifts have some sort of weak spot to them. You, for instance, can absorb knowledge instantaneously, but it has stunted your emotional growth; I can turn into a cat, but my gift has had unfortunate implications for my diet which I will not discuss in detail. Suffice it to say that I never eat with an audience."
Stung at the 'stunted emotional growth' comment, Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Become an asset to the state," she repeated. "That's the part which concerns me, Professor McGonagall. I'm not so sure I want to become one of those."
McGonagall looked thoughtful. "Assuming you had never heard of Hogwarts, what were your plans for the next five years?"
"Receive fifteen A*s on results day on the twenty-fourth of August, 2016," she replied promptly. "Start at Westminster in the autumn of 2016. Study five A-levels. Obtain a medicine offer from Trinity College, Cambridge in January 2018. Receive five A* on results day in August 2018. Begin studying medicine at Cambridge in October 2018 –"
"Yes, I can see you have it all planned out," McGonagall cut in. "But what of your friendships?"
"Friendships?" Hermione echoed, as though she had never encountered the term before.
"Everything you have told me is linked to your academics," McGonagall pointed out. "Results, university offers… where are the trips with friends? Outings with family?"
She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. "I don't see how –"
"I doubt you fit in at school, Hermione," McGonagall interrupted ruthlessly. "You're blindingly intelligent, and in a grammar school like yours, I'm sure it has won you enmity. Your gift only aids your naturally formidable intellect. I suspect you don't often enjoy the company of your peers."
A dull flush worked its way into Hermione's cheeks. Owing to her Indian mother, her skin was a honeyed brown which rarely expressed redness, but a corrosive embarrassment was working its way through her veins. She knew she was friendless but she hardly wanted to hear that a stranger knew it too.
"I'm not trying to be unkind when I say this, Hermione," McGonagall said softly. "It's perfectly normal for Muggleborns like you to struggle in Muggle educational establishments."
She seized on the unfamiliar term. "Muggleborn?"
"A gifted individual born from Muggles, that is, parents not gifted themselves," McGonagall explained. "Mostly, you'll find that powers follow familial lines. Magical people tend to marry each other, and so powers are often concentrated into pureblood families, so called because every member of them possesses a gift of some description. A significant fraction of Hogwarts students are purebloods. Half-bloods will have one gifted parent and one Muggle, and there are a fair number of them too. You, however, are a relatively rare case of a Muggleborn, with an ancestry which is completely free of gifted influence."
Hermione's lips twisted. She disliked discussions of ancestry. She had never felt particularly attuned to the loud, unbearably social culture of her Indian relations, but nor could she bring herself to like her white father's side of the family, who viewed her mother with suspicion. McGonagall saw her sour expression and misinterpreted its cause.
"Being a Muggleborn is not a bad thing, Hermione," she said. "There may be a pureblood or two who attempts to give you grief for it, but come straight to me and I'll sort it out for you. And if it helps you, know that the most gifted girl I have ever had the pleasure of teaching was a Muggleborn just like you."
It did help. Hermione turned to face her father. "Dad? What do you think?" She twisted. "Mum?" An odd impulse was urging her to agree to this insane plan, but she needed to know what her parents thought first.
"It's up to you, Hermione," her mother said. "I have every faith that you will make a spectacular doctor, if that is what you still wish to do. But…" she hesitated. "I must say I like the thought of you being with teenagers more like you, who'll understand you. I know it's been hard on you, having to hide your gift from your classmates."
Left hanging in the air: having to deal with being utterly friendless.
Her father nodded. "You don't have to work for MI6 in the end, Hermione. This is only sixth form. You can apply to Cambridge next October from Hogwarts just like you always planned."
"That's true," Hermione said. She met McGonagall's green gaze.
She had never done anything so reckless in her life. But maybe that was why she was Hermione Granger, the girl with no life outside her laptop, surrounded by textbooks she could read as easily as other people read postcards.
"I think," she said slowly, "I want to go to Hogwarts."
AN: As promised! As always, this first chapter is dedicated to .nerd, who WILL be getting an email response from me soon...
Now a few things to keep in mind:
I've set it in 2016, purely because that was when I was sixteen and I wanted to follow a timeline I was familiar with to avoid getting mixed up. As you can probably tell, I put a lot of my own Muggle experiences in it. The story isn't fully planned yet so an update may not be forthcoming immediately.
I hope you enjoy! And, before I forget - I've started a new one-shot collection which will be updated from time to time, so do check it out if it sounds like your jam.
I welcome and cherish all reviews, even the ones like dear samsbk's one which says I write 'shit stories', because as I said six years ago, it all just adds to the review count :) So flame away!