Chapter 2:  The Arrival

The letter arrived on 28th June:

                                 Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

                                      Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster

Dear Miss Granger:

            Thank you for registering for the Summer Term at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Enclosed you will find a list of offered classes, along with a brief description of each.  You may select up to five classes for the session, which will run from 1 July to 28 August.  Registration for classes will occur on the evening of arrival.  Space is limited, so please have at least one alternate class selected in the event one of your choices if full.  All supplies will be provided at Hogwarts. 

            Although standards of conduct will remain high, it has been decided that the dress code for the summer will be relaxed.  Students will be allowed to wear street clothes provided they are in good taste.   Please note, however, that indecorous clothing will not be tolerated and may result in expulsion for the summer term.  Exercise discretion in your clothing choices. 

            Classes will run from 12:00 pm –8:00pm Monday through Friday.  There will be recreational activities scheduled for each weekend. 

            As a final note, due to heightened security in and around Hogwarts, a member of the teaching staff will arrive at your home on 30 June to escort you to the school personally.  This is to ensure that there are no problems in arriving, as well as making sure that every student will be able to have an equal chance to register for their first choice classes.  As they will be on a strict schedule, please be ready for them at the appointed time. 

            Once again, thank you for choosing to spend your summer holiday at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  We look forward to seeing you.

                                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                        Minerva McGonagall

                                                                        Deputy Headmistress

Please note: Professor Severus Snape will be arriving to pick you up at 9:30 am on 30th June.

List of Available Classes:

Household Magic: Magic for cleaning, cooking and general use.  Plants and Herbs - A Practical Approach: Learn about wild plants and herbs as well as how to create your own household products. Tea Leaves for the Beginner: Learn about the different types of tea leaves and their uses in predicting the future. Love Spells for the Lovelorn: Learn special spells to cast yourself in a positive light, and find your soul mate. Remedial Transfiguration: For those students needing a review of previously covered material. Care of Magical Pets:  Learn about common household magical pets and how to care for them including diet, exercise, and how to keep them happy. Practical Self Defense for the Witch or Wizard:  Find your inner strength and learn to defend yourself in this fun, yet effective class. Healing Potions:  Learn how to brew some unusual healing potions (Please note- this class is reserved for students in the 4th form and beyond only). Magical Fine Arts:  Ever wondered how to make paintings move and suits of armor sing?  Find out here. Hogwarts through the Ages:  Think you know everything there is to know about the castle and grounds at Hogwarts?  Think again.  Tour the halls, learn about the alumni and the secrets contained in Hogwarts. Quidditch-A History:  Learn about past and present Quidditch stars, rules of the game, and defensive strategies for the game. Recreational Quidditch: Two hours on a broomstick, flying through the air.  Any Questions? Remedial Charms: for those who need a review of previously covered material. Magical Law and Punishment:  Learn the past present and future of magical law, as well as methods of punishment through the years. (Please note: there will be several essays through the course in which you must take a viewpoint on an issue.)

 

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The Granger residence was strangely quiet the morning of 30th June.  One would assume that Hermione's family would be getting dressed and ready to see a teacher from their daughter's school before she left for the summer.  However, such an assumption would be erroneous.

Mr. And Mrs. Granger had left the previous week to attend a weeklong dentistry convention in Dublin.  After the convention, they would be taking a holiday in Wales before returning to London.  As such, the only living creatures inhabiting the spacious home were Hermione and her mostly antisocial cat, Crookshanks.  This was not, unfortunately, a new occurrence.  Since Hermione had returned from her fourth year at Hogwarts, her parents had been away more than they had been at home.  In fact, since Hermione had returned home, she had seen her parents only on the afternoon she had alighted from the Hogwarts Express.  During an argument with her family on this very issue, Hermione had been told that at their age, they wanted to get out and enjoy the things they had worked so hard to get.  With Hermione in school through the year, they had become used to making plans without needing to worry about her, and certainly by this age, she should be able to look after herself.  This had been a bitter pill to swallow, but she had accepted it.  What came next, though, was even in hindsight, inexcusable in Hermione's eyes.  The argument had disintegrated from a debate to something akin to schoolyard brawling, to the point that Hermione had finally admitted that it got lonely being alone for weeks on end.  As she did not go to a local school, she had no friends really in the area.  Her friends had always been books, but now, even they didn't offer the solace they once did.  Finally, there was a war going on in the wizarding world, and she feared her parents would get caught in the crossfire. Being non magic would not protect them, but she was afraid to tell them about what was going on, for fear they would pull her out of Hogwarts, the one place she didn't feel like a freak. As Draco Malfoy had cruelly reminded her one day last year, her parents were "cannon fodder", easily sacrificed to whatever cause needed them.  It was cruel, but true, and she knew it.

"If you went to a normal school, you may have made some friends.  If you had not given up your life to go to some backwards, bizarre place where they don't even use electricity, you might have actually got a boyfriend.  Have you ever thought about the future, Hermione?  How will you get into Cambridge with qualifications from that place?  What are you going to do with your life, walk around in black robes and read tarot cards?  Honestly!  We raised you better than that. What would we tell our friends, what?  Have you ever thought about us, even for one second?  Did you ever think about what it must feel like to be us?  I mean, what do we tell them?  Our daughter is the Witch of Endor?  So, don't sit there and cry about what your life has become.  You made that choice, Hermione. You."

That had been the last time she had seen them.   When she had come downstairs after crying for what seemed like forever, there was a terse note with a phone number with "FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY" underlined, and cash in an envelope for her school supplies.  She snorted, and picked up Crookshanks to carry him outside into the hall.  So many people thought she led a charmed life.  If they only knew.

So, at 9:00 am, her trunk sat packed by the door with an empty cat carrier sitting on top of it - Crookshanks was in hiding somewhere after seeing the carrier come out of the hall cupboard- Hermione walked into the parlor, pulling her hair into a tortoiseshell barrette, her lavender sundress skimming her knees.  After taking a quick tour of the house to make sure she had not forgotten to pack anything, that everything that needed to be unplugged was, she sat down, put on her sandals and began to read the list of classes.  Being able to only pick five was going to be difficult.    Some of them could be eliminated immediately.  Love spells were out.  So was recreational Quidditch.  How to choose the others?  There was no listing of the instructors who were to be teaching the classes, but some were obvious.  Grabbing a pen, she started to scribble away.

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Professor Snape was in a foul mood.  He hated anything to do with Muggle mass transport, and the heat of the summer had not improved things.  After arriving at the London Floo Terminal, he had intended to walk directly to the tube platform.  However, he was nearly knocked to the ground by a large woman who was squeezed into a navy nylon tracksuit that made a scratching noise when she walked and her thighs rubbed together.  Her hair was arranged in an extremely unattractive hairstyle with a hole in the back from where she had slept on it, and she had around her waist what was euphemistically called a "bum bag"(and what the more practical would call a "pickpockets delight").  Pulling himself up to his full height, he gave her a look that would send his students shrieking from the room.  This irritant merely stared at him and started to whisper to her friends in a mock whisper that everyone could hear, about "those rude people".

Taking the tube turned out to be an additionally difficult chore as it was packed with sweating people.  When the stop nearest the Granger's finally arrived, the man who never seemed to move without the grace of a ballet dancer nearly tripped over an errant backpack in his hurry to get out of the carriage; so eager was he to escape the crying children, the riders who likely hadn't bathed in a week, and the pounding beat of a teenaged boys walkman that Snape could hear clearly from three seats away.  By the time he got to the surface street, he was nearly gasping for air.

Kensington was a beautiful neighborhood, filled with upwardly mobile families and concerned about appearances.   Planter boxes overflowed with blossoms of every description, and brass doorknockers gleamed in the morning sun.  The street, however, was strangely quiet.  There was no one walking their dog on the gleaming pavement, no paperboy throwing the morning paper on doorsteps, no children out playing in sandpits or even the sound of neighbors chatting as they walked out their front doors.  It looked on the surface to be perfection, but underneath the perfectly manicured exterior, you could almost feel the tension.  Walking down the street, he felt strangely exposed.

When he reached Hermione Granger's house, a fine sheen of sweat covered his body.  Professor Dumbledore had insisted that anyone who was to pick up Muggle born students were to dress as though they were Muggles themselves, and take nonmagical methods of transport once they arrived in the nearest city. Snape touched the black leather backpack that he carried containing the Portkey back to Hogwarts (a rumpled up towel), making sure it was there.  At exactly 12:00 noon, it would activate to send whoever was holding it to the gates of Hogwarts.  It was safety to him, assurance that he was going back to the world he belonged in. 

 Looking at the nearly identical facades of the homes and identical planter boxes. He wondered what sort of parents that Hermione had.    Parents often wanted for their children what they had worked to achieve themselves.  The expectations, especially for those who had not been born into a wealthy family, but had clawed their way to financial security could be very high.  Children were required to have top marks, associate with certain families and not with others.  Various clubs, activities, clothes and even boyfriends were required.  Anyone who didn't fit the mold was ostracized.  Hermione Granger, despite her brilliance intellectually, was a late bloomer.  She was often rejected by her peers at Hogwarts as a know it all.  But, what choice did she have? She had to succeed in the wizarding world, because she didn't fit in her old world anymore.  There was no second chance in the Muggle world for people like her.   What would she do, become a dentist like her parents?  In many ways, children coming from non wizarding families had a more difficult path.  They had to completely leave the world they knew to become what they had the potential to be.  Then they faced the double threat of being exiled by the family and life they had grown up with, and the culture they had grown to know, by virtue of their blood.  It wasn't pure enough on either side for many in either world. Yet many thrived.  Lily Potter, Minerva McGonagall, even Voldemort himself were proof of that.  All came from Muggle families to become some of the most influential wizards and witches of their time.  It wasas Dumbledore had often said, "our choices, much more than our abilities that make us who we truly are."  Muggle born children did well, not because they were any more blessed in one field, or favored by the Headmaster.  They did well because they had made the choice to succeed, not rest on their laurels because of their last name, or just get by doing the bare minimum because they were going to work for their families and do what was expected of them.  They couldn't go back.  They had to make it work. That insight was sobering, and he pondered it as he walked down the street looking for house numbers.

Hermione was in a frenzy trying to catch Crookshanks and put him in his carrier when Snape rang the bell.  As she opened the door, she pushed the hair that had escaped the barrette out of her face.  Apologising for not being completely ready, she ushered him into her house, through the hall and into the sitting room as she saw her cat dart under a chair.

Whilst she tried to catch the spitting feline, Snape glanced around.  It was as he expected- the room was elegant, each piece of furniture carefully chosen. Shades of cream and beige gave a cool and relaxing feeling to the space. But, looking around the room, there was absolutely no evidence that a teenager lived here.  There were no pictures of her on the wall, no shoes thrown into a corner.  The furniture was antique, not the kind that a teen could flop down on while reading or listening to music.  This was, without question, a house for adults. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Crookshanks sneaking out from behind a chaise.  Before the cat could react to having two pursuers, Snape had grabbed him, and as the squash nosed beast was shoved rather indelicately into the carrier, it retaliated by leaving thin strips of blood where claws dug into Snape's arm.

"I am so sorry, Professor", Hermione said, red suffusing her cheeks.  "Crookshanks hates going into his carrier, so from the minute it comes out of the cupboard, it's a fight". Snape waved it off. 

"I am surprised, Miss Granger, that you would even be awake at this ungodly hour", he said, wincing as she smiled. 

"You too?" she grinned.  Snape did not answer the question, but looked at her with a raised eyebrow in question as he pulled his wand out of his backpack.  It felt so strange not to be wearing robes, he thought.  Having to actually get a wand out of somewhere instead of just pulling it out of a pocket felt incredibly awkward.  And Professor Snape tried very hard not to be awkward in anything he did.  With a muttered "Reducio!" Hermione's trunk was the size of an index card, and Snape stashed it in his backpack while Hermione picked up the carrier.  Seeing that the cat's paw was sticking out of the wire in the carrier waiting to take another swipe at him, the professor swiftly walked to the door.  It was curious that her parents didn't seem to be at home, but he said nothing as she followed him out the door and locked it behind her, pocketing the key.  As she turned around, Hermione saw the next door neighbors curtains get pulled back, and a face appeared in the space.  Pasting on the biggest smile on her face she could muster at this hour in the morning, she waved.  The curtains snapped shut, as she muttered under her breath, "Nosy bloody prat".  The completely un-Hermione like comment brought a surprised laugh out of the Potions Master. Turning to walk back toward the tube station, he said with only a touch of sarcasm, "There may be hope for you yet, Miss Granger".