A/N: Hello peeps, I hate my real name, so I won't tell you what it is. Fine, it's Marina. Stoooooopid name. But I'm also know as 'rina, 'rines, Orange Rind, Lemon Rind, Marel, Via, Midget, Munchkin, (So I'm short) and heaps of other names you call little people. I'm from the Land Down Under, which in case you didn't know, is Australia, so for all you Americans who are reading this, my spelling of some words like 'colour' and 'centre' will be different. Anyway, review, please. This is my first fanfic story, so I want to get some feedback. All you flamers out there, if you do flame this story, give me some actually feedback, all right? Not just 'Your story sucks' stuff. Thank you for your co-operation. You have currently wasted about twenty something seconds of your miserable, miserable life. Okay, ignore that last bit. I just ate a Kit Kat so I'm really sugar hyper. WHEEEEEEE!
Hermione sat up in bed, a smile spreading happily across her face. Her seventeenth birthday had arrived- at exactly eleven twenty-six that night she would be officially of age. She swung her legs off her four-poster bed, threw on her robes, looked around for her copy of Ancient Numerology, and found it under a two-month-old Witch Weekly magazine.
Hermione bounced happily down the stairs, plopped herself resolutely onto a fat armchair in front of the dead fire, and turned to page 457. "Hermione," came a pained voice. "How could you even do that?"
"What, Ron?" she answered, not looking up and studying an ever so fascinating number chart.
"Just that! How could you waste a wonderful day like your birthday, reading dull books like…what's that your reading?" he took the book from Hermione. "Ancient Numerology? What's all this tosh?"
"You sound like Uncle Vernon," Harry said, sitting down on another overstuffed armchair, and putting his feet up on a table. "He always thinks everything I say is rubbish. Except for when I mention Sirius," he added, a crestfallen look going over his face.
"Anyway," Ron said quickly, glancing at Harry. "Why are you reading that stuff?"
"Because," Hermione said with annoying patience, "In case you haven't realized, just because it's my birthday doesn't mean Arithmancy is cancelled."
Ron groaned. "Bloody hell, why do you keep that subject? I would've died before I started doing sums in front of Vector." He shuddered. "She's about as barmy as Trewanley."
"Oh, shut up Ron." Hermione had returned to her book.
Hermione sailed happily through her classes, even giving Snape such a big grin that he stood, staring after her. Ron kept thanking Hermione for doing this, because Snape was trying to think of a good way to make Ron suffer in detention. (He had knocked a flask of porcupine spines into Harry's cauldron, making the potion within explode.)
Hermione stayed up till eleven, after everyone except Harry, Ron and herself had left the Common room. She was practising Transfiguration, making feathers appear and disappear with loud cracks. This deeply annoyed Ron, who gave Hermione his present and went upstairs. His gift was a heavy volume of Charms and Curses: Jinx your Friends! Only a little while later, Harry handed Hermione a small black box wrapped with a silver ribbon that seemed to shine even in the dark. Hermione carefully opened the box, and gasped in surprise. A silver necklace sat on a bed of cotton wool, the links so tiny she could barely make them out. Clasped to the necklace was a little glass unicorn. "Harry," Hermione breathed. "This is beautiful…"
Harry gave a small grin, before leaning over the box, and picked up the necklace. He clasped it gently around her neck, and kissed her lightly on the lips. He stood up, and headed up the staircase that led to the boy's dormitory, a smile playing on his lips, leaving Hermione in a complete state of shock.
Hermione toyed with the unicorn absently for a while, before picking up the box. It was so pretty; she couldn't just through it away. But the cotton would have to go, she had no use for that. The girl picked up the cotton, and found a slip of paper underneath. Harry must have written it, Hermione thought, and started to read.
My soul, it lives within you,
My enemy's in your foe.
My secret love, in the one you know.
Hermione smiled to herself, before getting up. She packed her things, and went upstairs the girl's dormitory. She placed the note carefully under her pillow, and promptly went to sleep.
"Wake up Emily," a voice was saying, shaking Hermione's shoulder. "Breakfast is in half an hour."
Hermione's first thought was, My name is not Emily. My aunt's name is Emily. Her second thought was, Why is Lavender playing such a stupid joke? Her next was, Lavender's voice sure is weird today…
Hermione sat up abruptly, looking into the face of an unrecognisable girl. Keep your bloody mouth shut, Hermione thought frantically. What's going on-her wild thoughts were interrupted by a loud yell. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" it was shouting. By the sounds of it, the speaker was male. Hermione leapt out of bed, found a bed robe, which thankfully had EMILY stitched across it, and started out the door. "Em!" a voice yelled from behind her. "You can't go out looking like that! You're in your night things, and you need your Head Girl badge!" it was the girl that had woken Hermione.
"Gladys has a point you know," another girl remarked, her eyes shining with intelligence. The girl put on a set of oval glasses. "How the boys will laugh!"
"I've done it before and no one has," Hermione said viciously.
The girls in the dormitory gaped, mouths open like dead fish. Hermione turned on her heels, and darted down the circular staircase, into the Common room. But there were differences: the chairs were in various spots, the coffee tables gone, replaced with dark, heavy looking mahogany tables. Harry was looking around him, as if in a state of panic. "Harry!" Hermione cried, putting a restraining hand on his arm. But his face was also different: his eyes were hazel, hair sticking up in other directions, and- Hermione stared. There was no scar. "Harry…your scar…" she whispered in shock. "It's gone."
