BOOK 1: HERMIONE GRANGER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

Chapter 4: The First Day of School

Six Years Earlier

Hermione woke up excited for her first day of school.

She put on the clothes that she had reverently unwrapped and laid out the night before. She carefully buttoned up her blouse (which was very tricky, and took three tries before she made it to the top with neither a button nor a hole left over) and made sure the skirt was facing the right way (the tag had to go at the back). Then came the part Hermione had been practicing obsessively over the past months: she threaded her necktie through her collar, carefully pulling it through until the skinny end hung level with the third button from the top. Then she crossed the two ends, the thick end went around one side, around the other, across the front, around the back, through the part that crossed the front, and… Hermione smiled proudly as the small mirror on her dresser revealed an only-slightly-lopsided windsor knot.

Finally, the blazer on top. That was the easiest step of the whole process. Then she went through the brochures that Oakbank had mailed one last time to make sure that every last requirement of the uniform code was met.

Hermione went to the kitchen to prepare some porridge for breakfast. It was at this point she realized her mistake.

She stood for a moment in the kitchen, balancing the work of undoing everything she had just done against a vivid imaging of what would happen if this was the morning she spilled porridge on herself. She sighed and decided there was nothing else for it.

She went back to the bedroom, carefully removed her new uniform, folded it to return it to its pristine state, put her pajamas back on, and then made herself porridge in the kitchen.

She was slightly annoyed at herself when she made it through breakfast and face washing and teeth brushing without spilling anything—she could have just left the uniform on after all!—but on reflection decided that even knowing the outcome it would not have been worth the risk.

Then she went back to her room for another round of careful buttoning, adjusting, and knot-tying, then she read the uniform regulations again just to be sure.

Then she had to open her new backpack, again, and look through the supplies in it, again, to confirm everything was in its place.

Then, all ready for school, there was nothing to be done but pace from the kitchen into the living room and back, while talking to herself about how her day would go.

"Child," murmured Ma after she had woken to see what the thump-thump-thump noise was, and found Hermione practically bouncing with each step, "I know that you're excited for school. But it's half past five in the morning."

"Oh," said Hermione. She had thought it was strange that it was completely dark out, but she'd chosen to believe that it was just an exceptionally cloudy morning. "It's just that I was awake, and I couldn't get back to sleep, and I couldn't just lay there anymore so… I thought I'd get ready for school!"

Ma Granger let out a sigh. She was really too old to keep up with the boundless energy of a young child. "Well, I suppose we can get some work done before you leave, then."

Hermione, eager worker though she was, was not quite six years old. So her actual utility in helping Ma with the many tasks she always seemed to have in progress was limited. But in Ma's estimation, doing something was better than her pacing around the tiny home for the next two and half hours.

And Ma Granger always had tasks that needed doing. Clothes too big for one neighborhood child had to be sorted and fixed and organized so they could go to another; meals had to be prepped and later would need to be dropped off; babysitting rotas needed to be arranged and then rearranged and then rearranged again; volunteers for all manner of tasks needed to be reminded that they'd volunteered. This morning Ma settled on mending clothes, that being something that stood little chance of mussing Hermione's carefully prepared uniform.

Ma set to organizing the pile she would work on today when Hermione spoke again.

"Ma," she said, with a hesitancy that only came with one subject, "do you… do you think Dad might come home today?"

Ma put down what she was doing, and held out her arms to envelope Hermione in a hug. "Sweetheart," she murmured into the mass of bushy hair, "I wish I knew. I reminded him when he last left, but you know his memory doesn't hold onto things like you or I can."

"I know," said Hermione. "I just thought–for the first day of school–that maybe…"

"You know disease doesn't work like that," said Ma gently. "It's not a matter of how much he loves you, or of him trying extra hard to remember. His brain is just hurt, and it's no reflection on you or anybody else that he can't keep track of things."

"I know…" Hermione sniffed.

"I know that doesn't make it any easier when you want him here and he's not," said Ma. And then she simply held Hermione for as long as the girl wanted, Ma's flannel nightgown absorbing tears before they could stain the new school uniform.

Eddie Granger had never gotten better after that strange and terrible night when he had appeared holding his new daughter. He seemed to flit between realities, sometimes aware of what was going on around him, sometimes seeing things nobody else saw, and sometimes simply locked in his own head.

For all that, he seemed to be happy. He was content to wander the neighborhood and talk with anyone who was willing. Often in his wandering he would disappear, for days or weeks at a time. The first time this happened Ma had been quite worried. She couldn't go to the police, obviously, and she was wary of asking Big Chris too much—he had his own gang to run, one that Eddie wasn't really a part of anymore. Ma knew Big Chris to be an honorable man in general, but from the rumors she picked up the years-long turf war with these Arrows people spoke of in whispered wasn't going that well. Even an honorable man had to make tough choices sometimes. Ma hoped Big Chris could turn things around; he'd earned a life sentence in Wakefield a dozen times over, that was certain, but he did actually care about the community. In any case, Ma's top priority was ensuring he did right by Hermione. So she kept quiet, and worried.

But then Eddie had wandered back one day, acting like he'd never left. Ma couldn't get a straight answer as to where he'd gone, but he seemed as healthy as he ever was and no worse mentally.

Then it had happened again, and again, and over the years she had simply gotten used to it. Eddie would be there or he wouldn't be. He was happy even if he wasn't whole, which was about as good as she could hope for at this point.

Ma, though, had the perspective of a grown woman. Hermione was a small child, and as such could hardly be expected to simply get used to her dad wandering in and out. She accepted that it happened, sure, but at times, like today, it came out how much it hurt her.

There was nothing Ma could do about that, though, except for giving Hermione as much stability and opportunity as she could. Which is why she never let Big Chris forget his promise, and why today Hermione was heading to Year 1 of the Pre-Preparatory program at Oakbank School. She couldn't give her granddaughter everything, but she could give her this.

Hermione's crying slowed and then stopped, and Ma pulled away to give her a smile. Wordlessly they sat down at the sewing table and started working.

They quickly fell in a rhythm, Ma identifying tears and holes, which Hermione would hold on to so they didn't lose their place while Ma found the right color of thread or patch of fabric. Ma kept up a running commentary, describing each step she took and answering Hermione's many questions while her hands seemed to work on their own.

The hours flew by, and though Hermione wouldn't have thought it possible, she actually became distracted enough that she was taken by surprise when Ma finally said, "I think that's enough for now, honey. The cab will be here in a few minutes."

Hermione's excitement flooded back, even more intense for its absence. She took one last look through her backpack to confirm that everything was still in place, then headed out the door. It wasn't that much lighter than it had been at 5:30–it really was quite cloudy—but that wasn't unusual for autumn in the north of England.

She barely heard Ma's last minute reminders. "The cab's already been paid, she shouldn't ask you for money… Listen carefully to your teachers… Speak up in class, don't mumble… Remember you're going home with Ethel for dinner at Uncle Chris's…"

They walked down the lane, past the rows of two-story brick tenement buildings all identical to the Grangers'.

The cab was already waiting for them when they reached the street at the end of the row. As vehicles went it stood out in this neighborhood for being both new and clean. The driver clearly noticed the juxtaposition, and was looking around nervously. He rolled down his window to confirm that Ma was his client, and only then did he unlock the doors.

Ma rolled her eyes. She disagreed with Big Chris on many things, but the young man ran a tight operation, and would never risk the hassle of the cabbies blacklisting the neighborhood en masse for what little could be gained rolling one.

Hermione noticed none of this. This was the chariot that was to take her to her first day of school, and in her eyes, it may as well have been Apollo's.

Hermione waved to Ma as she was driven away, her excited smile filling the back window.

Ma turned back home as soon as the car was out of sight around the corner. She wasn't one to stand around, wasting time on sentimentality. But it was with a heavy heart that she went back to her mending. The first time she dug into her sewing box for the right color of thread, she looked back to the trousers she was mending and realized that she'd lost her place, with nobody there to hold it.

This was the best day ever, Hermione decided. The drive to get here had been long–waaay too long–and very boring, but it was all worth it now because she was in school.

Her classroom was the most interesting place Hermione had ever been. There were just so many books, more books than she had at home, more books than even Ethel had at home, practically as many books as the library had.

And there were toys as well, not baby toys like at the doctor's office, but cool puzzles like a cube that could only turn certain ways or blocks that you had to fit together right to let a tiny ball out.

And she had her own desk, with her own pencil case and her own binder and her own paper. Hermione straightened out her things on her desk about once every five minutes on her first morning, and every time it made her feel good about how the desk and paper and pencils were all hers.

And her teacher! Hermione hadn't seen the rest of the teachers at Oakbank, but she was already sure that Miss Anderson was the most beautiful. She was young–probably seventeen, Hermione thought. Hermione had once passed a magazine stand in the grocery store, and from the titles she had learned that most beautiful people were seventeen. And Miss Anderson's hair wasn't like Ma's or any of Ma's friends', who all had short gray curls. It wasn't like Hermione's, either, which was bushy and impossible to tame even when she stood still for hours to let Ma try to get a brush through it. Miss Anderson's hair was glossy and golden and perfect.

And then, Miss Anderson picked up Where the Wild Things Are and asked if anyone knew what book she was holding, and Hermione raised her hand as quickly as she could, because of course she knew! And Miss Anderson smiled at her and it was glorious. And then Miss Anderson asked her if she could read any of it, and Hermione read four whole pages by herself. And Miss Anderson told her that she was such a smart girl, which made Hermione smile so widely her cheeks hurt, which she didn't even notice because Miss Anderson loved her and going to school was the greatest thing that had ever happened to her.

For the entire morning, Hermione sat on the edge of her desk, primed to raise her hand at the merest hint of a question, in the hopes that Miss Anderson might smile at her again and remark on what a smart girl she was.

This was the worst day ever, Hermione decided. Why did the boys have to pick on her?

She had gone outside for lunch break, clutching the picture she had drawn in second period. The picture that Miss Anderson had said, "showed a true artistic spirit." She had true artistic spirit! Hermione knew that Ma probably would have told her to leave her picture inside so it wouldn't get dirty, but she simply couldn't bear to be parted from it. So she had wandered the playground, holding the picture to her chest and talking to herself, reviewing all of the amazing things that had happened that morning. She'd been so distracted that she hadn't realized she'd wandered out of the play equipment set aside for the Year 1 class and into the zones of the bigger kids.

"Hey! Are you talking to yourself?" At first Hermione hadn't even realized that the older boy was addressing her.

"She is! What a weirdo."

There were three of them, all bigger and older than Hermione. She hadn't really been paying attention to her surroundings, so it was only then that she realized the three boys had cornered her against the edge of the yard–and that she couldn't see any of the teachers they'd been introduced to at the start of the period.

"Excuse me, I'd like to go back over there," Hermione said politely.

"You'd like to go back ower dere," one of the boys mocked in a babyish sing-song. "What's that you're holding?" he then asked aggressively.

The second boy grabbed the picture she was holding and pulled it out of her hands.

"That's mine!" Hermione shrieked.

"The hell is this supposed to be?" asked the third boy, taking the picture. And then. And then. He tore her picture, the one that Miss Anderson said showed true artistic spirit, in half. Then he ripped the halves, and ripped again, until he was dropping dozens of small pieces like they were confetti.

The boys laughed while Hermione tried to rescue the pieces before they hit the wet ground but she couldn't because there were too many of them.

Worst. Day. Ever.

And then another voice joined the group.

"You leave her alone." Hermione looked up, and saw another girl standing a few feet away. She didn't recognize her from the class introductions they'd done that morning, but she also didn't look much older than Hermione. Second Year, maybe?

"What did you say?" the second boy asked.

"Leave her alone, you— you— bullies!"

The third boy sneered. "And you're going to make us, eh?"

The leader of this group of bullies looked this new girl up and down. "Careful there, scholarship student. You wouldn't want to rip your uniform - the charity bin might not have another."

The three boys laughed together, and the leader advanced on the other girl.

The boys may have been bigger than her, but somebody had clearly taught her what to do when confronted with superior force: strike first and strike hard. And so, while the closest of the bullies was still laughing, while he turned his head to ensure that his joke received the appropriate response from his fellows, the girl took a short step forward, planted her left leg, pivoted her hips, and swung her right foot into the boy's groin with a form that would gain the interest of the Oakbank football coach, had he been there to see it.

The boy dropped to the ground. One of his friends took a step forward, to see if he needed help. The boy on the ground promptly vomited all over his friend's shoes.

"Come on," the other girl said to Hermione. She grabbed her hand and the two of them ran.

After they had run back to the safety of the Year 1 zone, Hermione and her savior stopped to catch their breaths.

"Thank you," said Hermione, though between being out of breath from running and the snot that still filled her nose from crying, it came out more like, "han hu". From the nod she got in return it seemed like her rescuer understood, however.

A few more minutes and she could speak more clearly. "I'm Hermione."

"I'm Tiffany," said the other girl.

And with that, Hermione made a new friend. They agreed to stay in the safety of the little kids' playground for the moment, and found, almost miraculously, two empty swings next to each other.

"What's a 'scholarship student'?" asked Hermione, pumping her legs without much effect.

Tiffany blushed a bit at this as she swung past. "It means… it means that I'm here because I did well on this fancy test they gave me." Hermione was visibly confused. "So, my dad doesn't have to pay the school for me to go here."

That didn't clear anything up at all. It sounded like the older boys were insulting Tiffany by reminding her that she did so well on a test that the school let her come for free. Wasn't that a good thing? Hermione tried pumping her legs faster, but that only seemed to bleed away what little momentum she'd gained.

"But that means you're really smart!" said Hermione.

Tiffany became even more frustrated. "It means I'm poor!" she said at last, letting her feet down to stop the swing. "They have rich parents who could afford school here, and I don't. That's what they were saying."

"Oh," said Hermione, starting to see the problem. "That's okay, I'm poor too! Ma doesn't have much money, and she said the only reason I could come to Oakbank is because Uncle Chris paid them, because my dad used to work for Uncle Chris but then he went crazy."

Tiffany didn't really know what to say to that. "So… where do you live?"

"Salford."

"Hey, me too! That's actually kind of weird, we're probably the only two people from Salford at school."

"Well, and Ethel. That's Uncle Chris's daughter. She goes here too."

Tiffany pushed off the ground and started pumping her swing higher again. She was thinking, and frowning. "Your Uncle Chris, do people call him Big Chris?"

"Yes! Do you know him?" asked Hermione.

"I… I've heard of him," replied Tiffany.

"So what kind of test did you do to get in here?"

"Oh, it was lots of puzzles and such." Hermione looked at Tiffany in a way that made Tiffany realize she was looking for more than that.

"Like, okay here's one:" Tiffany jumped out of her swing, Hermione close behind, to start drawing a diagram on the ground with a stick. "There's three princes, and five crowns. And three of the crowns are gold and two are silver. And the king lines the princes up and says…"

Hermione happily spent the rest of lunch hour discussing logic puzzles with her new friend. It was the best day ever.

At the end of the school day, Hermione convinced Tiffany to just come with her and Ethel, since they were all going back to Salford anyway.

Ethel was a little standoffish at first. Tiffany looked like she might be offended at this, but Hermione knew that Ethel was just quiet, and that her mom was constantly telling her not to embarrass herself so she never did anything without thinking about it a lot.

But eventually Ethel worked up the courage to ask Tiffany about Year 2. Tiffany seemed pleased to be consulted as the resident expert on all things Oakbank, and all awkwardness was forgotten as each girl described their favorite wonders of the school's classrooms.

But it was Tiffany who gave the most promising report: "I heard that, in Year 3, they have a robotics club."

"You mean…" breathed Hermione, "I could build… robots?"

And suddenly, Hermione's young life had a goal.

They arrived at Uncle Chris's shortly before dinner. This wasn't the abandoned warehouse in which Big Chris did business–and which neither Hermione nor Ethel was ever expected to be–this was the tall row house where Uncle Chris held gatherings for the extended family. All those people related by blood, in one way or another.

The girls had barely walked in the door when Ethel's mom swooped down on them for a recap of the day, while at the same time fussing with Ethel's hair and uniform, to straighten here and smooth out there.

Hermione showed Tiffany where the phone was so she could call her dad to let him know she'd been invited for dinner. She seemed inexplicably nervous, and Hermione heard Tiffany whisper "Big Chris" into the phone.

But in the end Tiffany said she could stay, which made Hermione so happy because she really wanted to tell the family what a hero Tiffany had been and how smart she was.

As they climbed up the open, switchbacking staircase to the top floor, where dinner was being served, Hermione introduced Aunt Margaret to Tiffany. Hermione was rather taken aback by the cool welcome the tall girl received. Wasn't it good that they had found a friend, and one from their own neighborhood even? And Tiffany was obviously brilliant.

Hermione didn't have too much time to ponder this, though, as the instant they crested the final set of stairs they were enveloped in wellwishers asking about their first day of school.

The top floor of the townhouse was one huge room, with a higher ceiling than the other levels of the house. And since it had been built on top of the row, the room jutted out above the neighbors, making space for windows on all four walls. Standing above the surrounding buildings, it was enough to tempt even a dim Manchester sun to light up the space.

As usual when she saw him, shortly into the proceedings Hermione was pulled aside by Soap to discuss the week's races.

"So," Soap said, "here's the sheet. What do you think?"

Hermione scanned down the list of names and times, some of which were a little smudged from being printed on cheap newsprint and then carried around in Soap's pocket while he did his rounds.

"Princess Pie," Hermione said at last. "She's going to win on the ninth."

"You're sure?" asked Soap.

Hermione nodded her head. "I love pie!"

"Princess Pie–that's fifteen to one! You'll make me a rich man, Lucky." Soap always called Hermione "Lucky," and whenever he saw her they would play their little game, him pulling the week's races in his pocket and her picking winners. Soap never told anyone this, but Hermione did as well picking winners as any of the gaffers at the track who'd spent their lives doing it.

"Soap!" Aunt Margaret interrupted. "Stop pestering the girl about horse races. She's a proper school lady now!"

"Aw, G, don't worry, I'm not corrupting our Lucky."

As soon as he said it the room tensed. Hermione had never learned why, but she knew that Aunt Margaret hated, hated to be called "G." The only clue she ever found out was that it was a nickname she had from before Ethel was born.

The moment was saved by Uncle Chris. "Honey," he said in his deep rumble, "let's serve the meal, yeah?"

And then everyone was filling their plates, and talking and laughing. Hermione regaled a suitably impressed group of adults with her tale of reading four pages of Where the Wild Things Are, while Ethel told them about just how many different musical instruments the school had, and how she has actually gotten to try a cello in their afternoon music period.

And robots! Hermione made sure everyone knew she was going to build robots when she grew up.

"Robots!" muttered Bacon. "That'll be the day." But he smiled at Hermione and asked her what type of robots she would make, and when Hermione told them she would make a robot to sneak into somebody's home and steal valuables, everyone laughed and told she fit in perfectly here. Which Hermione didn't really understand, but felt a warmth in her whole body because she fit in.

Hermione was sure to praise her lunch hour hero for her rescue and herculean kick, actions which received a combination of winces at the poor boy's plight and measuring looks at the girl's quick thinking and strategic resolution of the bullies.

"You Mike Ayers' girl?" Uncle Chris asked Tiffany.

She nodded her head.

"Good lad, your Dad. I'll make sure to tell him what a brave daughter he's got, next I see him." Tiffany blushed but looked extremely pleased.

The group, more than a dozen people, made their way through meat pies and sausages, mashed potatoes and squash, beer and fizzy drinks.

Aunt Margaret had just gone to fetch the pudding when Hermione, feeling rather full, looked around the room. She felt her gaze drawn to something on the wall behind her.

"That's really pretty," she said, pointing to the small abstract sculpture.

"What is, sweetheart?" asked Bacon.

"That," repeated Hermione, in case Bacon simply hadn't heard her over the hubbub of several overlapping conversations around the table.

"Not quite sure what you're pointing at," said Bacon. Hermione, frustrated, got up to walk across the room and put her pointing finger directly on the strange sculpture.

It was made of wood, about the size of a baseball. It wasn't solid, and looked like a carved vine, wrapped and knotted in on itself, but with space between each strand, so that air could flow through the sculpture.

Bacon blinked, then shook his head. He walked over to the wall and tried to pick up the sculpture.

"Strange…" murmured Bacon. "Until you pointed this out, Lucky, I hadn't noticed it at all." He gave a tug. "And it's stuck to the wall something fierce."

Hermione touched the sculpture again. It felt warm, and made her hands tingle. She wanted to take it off the wall to examine it… she wanted to take it off the wall…

With a thunk, the sculpture fell to the ground. Hermione picked it up, and noticed that, up close, she could see strange letters carved in delicate spirals all over the knotted vines. The workmanship was extraordinary.

"Here," murmured Bacon, "I'll ask your uncle Chris about this. Maybe it was supposed to be there." His tone suggested it was certainly not.

He gave Hermione an odd look, one she couldn't decipher. "You did good here, Lucky," he said, breaking into a smile.

Then the pudding was out, and the strange sculpture was forgotten as Hermione tried to squeeze just a little more food in.

Once everyone had made good headway into their pudding, Uncle Chris stood and spoke to the room at large.

"Here," he raised a mug to the room, "to Ethel, and Hermione, and Tiffany, on the day you start school.

"I know we're not the most scholarly group here" this led to some chuckles around the room, "but it's never a bad thing to learn. Numbers and letters, maths and history and geography, it's all useful, and it'll all help you to make our town a better one.

"Because that's what it's about, isn't it? Leaving things better for our kids. Better than we got them."

The adults around the table murmured agreement. Hermione glowed with pride, knowing that she would grow up to make things better for her family.

Author's Note:

One thing you may notice is that I'm not writing out accents here. This is mainly because I'm not British and have no particular expertise in the different dialects spoken in Britain. I'm also not going to write out French or Bulgarian accents if and when those pop up. I really want to avoid the written equivalent of Dick van Dyke in Marry Poppins-it's a little insulting to people who actually speak these living, breathing, fascinating variations of language. So you'll just have to use your imagination to fill in whatever Manc street toughs sound like.