Aurelia POV

Aurelia was bored out of her mind. The store had not acquired any interesting new artifacts for weeks now and with the holidays done there had not been any social functions since new year's. So, when she had gotten bored of exploring the basement of Burke Manor, a massive maze that felt much like the deep storage of a museum only a lot worse organized and a lot more dangerous, she had flooed to the store and was sitting by the upstairs window, watching people flow through the alley.

So far, she had only had the usual types passing through, the addicts, the people whose trades were not acceptable on Diagon Alley, and the destitute. Her attention was snapped away from her thoughts of bookies and prostitutes by the appearance of a far more interesting person.

The girl was about 4ft 8' and had long massively frizzy brown hair. It was immediately obvious that she was muggle born based on her clothes and the fact that she had managed to wind up in Knockturn Alley at all, let alone without an escort. When Aurelia looked closer at the girl's gait and posture however, she realized the most surprising thing, this girl intended to be there. She clearly had no idea where she was, evidenced by her constant glancing down the passageways between the buildings and the annoyed look she gave the worn down Borgin and Burke's sign when she got to the dead end, but she walked with a confidence that could only mean she had chosen to venture into the little slice of the underworld that was Knockturn Alley.

The girl also clearly did not notice that she was being followed by three men who had the clear hunched over posture of powdered dragon claw addicts. Aurelia, unlike most of her peers, did not think there was anything innately bad about muggle-born, but it was moments like these that made her agree with her grandfather's pompous portrait; they were completely clueless half the time. Aurelia felt a little bad at how excited she felt to have something to do. Walking down the stairs she straightened her posture and pulled out her best enigmatic pureblood heiress face and stormed out the door, catching the attention of the men in the process of trying to grab the girl.

From street level her suspicions were confirmed, she could easily see the red rimmed eyes and smell the sulfur, clear signs of heavy claw use. Aurelia lightly grabbed the other girl's shoulder and fought the urge to tense up as the girl spun around as if to attack her only to stop, looking startled. Aurelia started talking to the other girl in a tone that she tried to make chastising, yet not too mean. "Irene, what are you doing? I told you to use the floo to visit me here, not to walk." Seeing the slightly vacant looks on the faces of the men as they watched the interaction, Aurelia realized that this rescue was going to be a lot easier than she expected. All these men clearly had half their brains rotted out from drug use. Inwardly Aurelia laughed a little bit, if these men were this stupid, she might as well give them something to remember.

Aurelia fancied herself an expert in two things: reading people and glaring. Just three weeks ago she had managed to secure the last tea sandwich from a certain Gregory Goyle through nothing but glaring him into submission. So, when she gave the leading man her best death glare and accompanied it by saying "I sincerely hope you did not just attempt to accost an upstanding pure-blood heiress." She had no doubt that these men would spend the rest of the day cowering in some hole not bothering to realize that no real pureblood would ever dress in muggle clothes and go traipsing around a slum unaccompanied.

Pulling the girl into the store, Aurelia finally got a close look at her. She was skinny, not gaunt, but enough that her cheekbones stuck out a little unnaturally from her cheeks and all her clothes seemed a little bit too baggy although they appeared to be slightly too small for her. As Aurelia watched the girl took only a moment to compose herself before meeting Aurelia's eyes with an appreciative "thank you." Looking into this girl's brown eyes, while they exchanged introductions, Aurelia saw none of the usual spark of childhood innocence, this girl clearly had almost no money and had already been through a lot, maybe she was not as out of place in Knockturn Alley as she originally thought.

Following their handshake, Aurelia followed up with the question she had been dyeing to ask since she had seen Hermione walking down the Alley, "Why did you come down Knockturn Alley?" Hermione stopped glancing around the store and focused back on her, "I wanted a book on wandless magic but the woman in Diagon Alley either didn't have any or wouldn't give them to me, so I was trying to find somewhere down here."

Aurelia was not sure whether to be surprised by what Hermione was looking for or laugh at the absurdity of the situation. It was clear to her that Hermione had no idea she had asked a Diagon Alley shop keeper for books on what most of the country considered a master level skill and many viewed with suspicion as almost a dark art. When she repeated her thoughts out loud to Hermione, Hermione did not reply, but Aurelia saw a small flick of surprise, no pleasure, fleet across Hermione's face it was well concealed, she clearly had practice, but not well enough. Aurelia knew that look that was the exact look of someone who had gotten away with something they were not supposed to that would so often pop up on Malfoy's face before his mother crushed those delusions. Hermione was doing wandless magic; she was sure of it, this girl just kept getting more interesting.

Aurelia considered her options; she could get Mr. Borgin to escort Hermione back to Diagon Alley or she could help Hermione find the books she wanted. Hermione was clearly a powerful and intelligent witch and despite being clueless about most of the wizarding world she would be a useful person to know next year at Hogwarts, Aurelia knew that Hermione would be going to Hogwarts next year with her, she looked the correct age and there was no way that a witch as smart as her wouldn't be accepted. It was logical to help Hermione Aurelia decided as she mentally denied her loneliness and boredom playing into her decision.

Breaking the now slightly awkward silence between them, Aurelia offered "I might have a few books on the topic in the library at my house if you want to come look at them." Hermione gave Aurelia a small, controlled smile as she accepted.

A quick explanation on how to use the floo later and Aurelia was standing in the large stone fireplace while Hermione watched her carefully. Aurelia threw down the floo powder and speaking clearly said "Burke Manor" before she disappeared into the green flames.

Hermione POV

Hermione walked out of the flames into the entry hall of Burke Manor and immediately noticed the floors. They were made up of pieces of marble of different sizes and colors, from white all the way to black and in the sunlight coming through the large arched windows lining the walls they seemed to form patterns and shift as she moved her focus across them.

Aurelia who had been waiting for her next to the large fireplace started off across the room, her shoes clicking on the hard stone floors. Hermione followed her through the large double doors on the other side of the room into what appeared to be the main body of the manor. Hermione had seen museums before on class field trips and that was what Burke manor made her think of it was what she assumed an extremely rich private collection would look like. The room they entered was long and effectively a very large hallway. It had many doors on either side and ended in a large, polished wood staircase. But what had given Hermione the impression of a museum was how in between the doorways there were large portraits, display cases, and pedestals bearing items.

Hermione resisted the urge to rush over and look at all the displays as they walked down the hallway, the portraits on either side scowling at her and muttering to each other. Navigating their way up the stairs and through the house, Hermione soon found herself in front of a pair of beautiful chestnut doors with the Burke crest carved into them, Hermione recognized it from one of the history books she had read.

Before Aurelia had a chance to open the doors, the portrait next to the doors whose face was already so red it looked like he was about to explode started shouting at the top of his lungs, "Stop Heir Burke you will not allow our library to be desecrated by such Mudblood Filth." Aurelia shot the portrait a look, "Herbert, respect our guest, she is half-blood but of good stock." Glancing over at Hermione she added "Despite her poor fashion choices."

Hermione was torn between being offended by the shots at her blood status and clothing choices or appreciative of the defense and the fact that it shut up the portrait who neglected to offer an apology, just turning up his nose and sniffing. Following Aurelia through the doors, she shot her a glare in retaliation for the insult to be greeted with a guilty look, "My family are all a bit prejudiced" Aurelia said. "And you're not" Hermione shot back, immediately feeling guilty seeing the hurt look on Aurelia's face, of course she isn't she rescued me and brought me here.

"I was raised by my grandmother who was half-blood" Aurelia offered "and I had a muggle born governess for a few years." They fell into an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds until Hermione, mentally kicking herself for putting herself in this position ventured out an apology, "sorry, that was uncalled for, you've only helped me." She felt relief sweep through her when Aurelia offered her a weak smile back, before Hermione chastised herself, why did she care about this girl's feelings so much, they just met.

With that resolved Hermione turned to focus on the room they had moved into, and her breath caught in her throat. The room was massive and circular and brightly illuminated by the light shining in through the large glass dome that topped the room. They stood on a balcony and glancing over the edge, Hermione could see the room was about five stories high. The balcony spiraled down in a massive ramp to the ground floor giving access to the innumerable bookshelves that lined the walls. Hermione could not help the small breath she expelled, "It's beautiful."

She was pulled out of her trance but the response from Aurelia, "Yes, it is." Hermione looked over to see Aurelia smiling, "The books you want will be down here." She led Hermione to the third floor and indicated a shelf of thick, old tomes.

Hermione almost fell out of her chair when a loud pop filled the air. Appearing in front of her was one of the ugliest things she had seen in her entire life. Hermione glanced over at Aurelia in the next armchair over and saw no surprise, so she relaxed. The creature's head was massively disproportionate to its body and appeared even large due to the massive ears and eyes. It was dressed in nothing, but a tea towel wrapped around its waist and small apron on top. It opened it mouth and in an extremely high-pitched voice squeaked out "Mistress, dinner is ready for you and your guest." Aurelia looked down at the little thing "Thank you, Panpey we will be there shortly, we will eat in the kitchens." The creature bowed so low Hermione was scared it was about to topple over due to its overweighted head than popped out of existence.

Hermione was reluctant to stop reading and have to leave the book, standing up she walked over to the bookshelf to reshelve her material, a damn shame she was just starting to get to some really interesting stuff. "You can keep it until you finish it" she heard Aurelia say from behind her. Excited at the chance to continue, she carefully put the large volume into her bag.

Hermione had initially been confused why they were going to eat in the kitchens but was immensely grateful for it when they passed through the dining room on their way there. It was a large dark room with a table that was longer than a bus, not a very cheerful environment.

Dinner started off extremely awkward, despite having spent most of the day together, Hermione realized that she and Aurelia had spent probably five minutes total talking and they had very few shared experiences. But then Hermione realized a topic they could both talk about, Hogwarts. A lively conversation about the school later and Hermione felt like the ice was broken enough to ask the real questions she wanted answered, the kind of things that you couldn't really find out from a book.

The last ten minutes of dinner basically devolved into an interrogation session about the wizarding world, luckily Aurelia did not mind, Hermione thought she probably found it amusing being grilled about information that was elementary to her. With dinner all gone, Hermione knew her exit was imminent, so she broke out her last questions.

"How are you Pureblood if your grandmother was half-blood?"

"Most Purebloods aren't as pure as you think, there aren't that many purebloods, so unless you want to marry your cousins you have to branch out. Pureblood just means all your grandparents are magic so half-bloods with two magical parents are fine by most families."

"How bad are blood purists now? It's mostly gone right?"

Aurelia gave her a sad look, "It's the vocal minority, but they are very vocal and usually very rich."

Hermione walked through London with the necklace she had stolen. It was the score of the century it had lots of diamonds and it looked old, probably a family heirloom, and it was going to pay for her meals for the next five months until she got to Hogwarts.

As they always did when she was just mindlessly walking, her thoughts turned to her most recent book. Now that Aurelia was letting her borrow books from the Burke library, it was like a new world was open to her. She had since moved on from researching wandless magic, the only thing she could do to improve in it apparently was work on controlling her magical core, AKA practice which she was already doing. Now her fascination was wards, she was pretty sure two thirds of the books on the subject in Aurelia's library would probably be considered dark magic by many, but honestly how can protective magic be dark, excluding the ones that required human sacrifices, Hermione got why those could be seen as bad.

Hermione had only known Aurelia for about two months now, but she felt like they were friends, not that she had much experience with those, and she felt like Aurelia was the same, but whenever she Floo over for a book, they would eat and talk. Hermione was so happy they had met, not just because she didn't feel so lonely anymore, but also because she had learned so much about the wizarding world and probably would have made an absolute fool out of herself otherwise.

She got to the pawn shop she was going to sell the necklace at. It was a very seedy establishment, if it was in the wizarding world, it would not look that out of place on Knockturn Alley if the metal bars on the windows were removed. Entering the store, Hermione saw it was empty except for a man behind the counter and a second man who looked like a rock with a bad face carved into it standing in the corner wearing a denim jacket. She got straight to the point, walking up to the counter and dropping the box on top of "I want to sell this."

The man behind the counter was completely bald and extremely pale. He gave her a smile with his yellow crooked teeth, a smile that could curdle milk. He opened the box and making various indistinct noises, pulled out a jeweler's glass out of a box on the counter and observed the necklace.

Looking up at Hermione with his brown eyes, he leered, "Best I can do is 300 pounds" Hermione had expected this, but she was honestly a little bit offended he had started so insultingly low.

"That necklace is worth at least 10,000 pounds, I expect at least 2,000 for it."

"500 pounds"

"2,000"

"800"

"This is insulting, I will take my business elsewhere if you cannot do better."

The man seemed to think for a few seconds before giving her that disgusting smile again, "How about this, you take the 800 and I don't call the cops to ask where you got this fine piece."

Hearing that Hermione quickly decided to try her luck at a different establishment. She grabbed the necklace and bolted. Sprinting out of the store. Hermione might have been desperate, but she was no match for the speed of two grown men. She had made it about halfway down the alley before she felt contact with her shoulder as she was smashed to the side, colliding hard with the wall. Immediately her head was shoved into the brick side of the building, and she felt another hand, she assumed the second man wrenching the necklace from her hand.

"I'll be back at the store, get rid of her" she heard the insidious voice, utter behind her and heard his steps start retreating down the alley.

Hermione felt desperation building inside of her and she did not push it down but channeled it into her hands. This time it was not a surge and a burst of fire, but she could feel the magic filling her hands, she twisted and grabbed behind her trying to find the arm shoving her into the wall, latching onto it. The Alley filled with the smell of burning denim and she heard the man howl, jumping back. Hermione spun around, seeing the boulder had backed up but was not blocking the way to the main street, a knife in his left hand, his right forearm sporting large burns.

He charged at her, Hermione tried to dodge but the man was just too large, he barreled into her, crashing down on top of her crushing the air from her lungs. But Hermione had her hands between them, she pushed up on his sternum and kept pushing even when she felt a stabbing pain deep in her right side, she kept pushing and the man screamed and screamed until suddenly he stopped. Hermione wiggled out from underneath his massive body, trying to ignore the pure pain emanating from her side. She managed to push him off of her, onto his back and then she saw it, her handprints scorched into his chest, burning through flesh and his rib cage. She could see under her right hand; the scorch remains of the man's heart.

She could not feel any remorse for the man though, he was going to kill her, she got him first. This thought was accompanied by a massive throb of pain from her side, he might still get her if she did not get help. A hospital was out of the question so, attempting to walk as normally as possible, Hermione stumbled along the 10-minute walk to the Leaky Cauldron. Stepping into the fire, she went to the one place she thought she could find help, Burke Manor. Hermione stumbled out of the flames and collapsed, blood running between the pieces of marble.