Disclaimer: As much as I'd LOVE to own Tom Felton, I'm afraid all I own of Harry Potter are three li'l DVDs and some stickers.
Author's note: A Hermione fic for my friend. Ties in with his fic. As to the meaning of the title...well, you're going to have to go out there and do a little research.

Number Nine
1. A New Student

"Have you seen the new kid?" Ron whispered to Harry and Hermione, nudging the latter in the ribs.
"Ouch! Ronald, you could just point!" she whined.
Ron pulled a face and pointed at a medium-sized, dark-haired, fairly skinny boy talking to Dumbledore.
"He's in the year above us and he's only just found out he's a wizard."
"Is that common?" Harry asked.
"No!" Ron and Hermione replied in unison.
"D'you reckon he's a Squib?" Ron asked.
"Unlikely," said Hermione, craning her neck to get a better look at the new boy, "He hadn't even heard of Hogwarts until he got the letter. Squibs have to apply through their parents."
Harry and Ron stared at her.
"How did you know?" Harry asked.
"I like to enlighten myself on how the school is run," Hermione answered, like it was obvious.
"No," said Ron, "How did you know he hadn't heard of Hogwarts? Have you been talking to him?"
"Well…"
"When?"
"On the train."
"You were with us on the train!" said Harry.
Hermione sighed, "You really are dimwitted, aren't you? Remember when I went to the bathroom and didn't come back for a really long time?"
Harry and Ron looked blank.
"You were playing checkers?"
Harry continued to look blank whilst Ron shrugged a little,.
"Ron made a crude remark?"
"Oh, the bathroom window thing!" Harry exclaimed and burst out laughing again.
"It wasn't funny!" Hermione snapped, "Anyway, if you had been listening, you would know that I'd been late because I was talking to Tom."
"Who the bloody hell is Tom?" Ron asked carelessly.
"The new boy!" Hermione nearly shouted, "My goodness, you need a hearing charm put on your ears!"
"So what's he like?" Harry asked.
"Well…" Hermione started, but drifted off into a trance, a strange smile twisted across her face.
It had all started at about one o clock on the Hogwart's Express.

"I'm just going to nip to the bathroom," Hermione told Harry and Ron. They didn't look up. In fact, Hermione wasn't sure they had acknowledged her statement at all, but she left anyway. As soon as she stepped out of the cabin she was almost knocked over by a flustered-looking Slytherin girl who still hadn't changed into her robes. Hermione walked along a number of corridors before catching the eye of someone she really didn't want to see. She swirled around and attempted to go back the other way, but Draco Malfoy had hold of her shoulder.
"Well, well, if it isn't the Mudblood Granger," he said. There was something different about his voice that Hermione couldn't quite place; it almost sounded like he wasn't sneering.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" she said quickly.
"I've seen someone you'll really like," he said in a whisper, "Three cabins down. A kid reading this fat book. Looked like a dictionary. You're into bookworms, right?"
Hermione knotted her eyebrows in confusion, "Why are you telling me this?"
Draco shrugged, "Ever since meeting her, I've had the weirdest urge to help people."
"Met who?"
"Si-" he began, but quickly corrected himself, "It matters not. Now get lost. I've helped people enough for one day."
He strode off without another word.

Hermione continued walking, and passed the cabin Draco had mentioned. She stopped. Was it worth trusting Malfoy on this one? She turned and peered inside the cabin, spotting a boy roughly her age on the seat, reading, exactly as Malfoy had said, a huge book which she recognised as The Standard Book of Spells, Chapter 2. She watched him for a while, getting rather charmed by the passionate concentration on his face, and the lively sparkle in his eyes. She barely noticed that he glanced up from his book and looked right at her. After a good twenty seconds of eye-contact, she snapped out of her trance and timidly knocked on the door.
"Sorry," she said, sliding open the door, "I didn't mean to stare. I just…well, I don't know, really."
The boy smiled and extended a hand, "Thomas Dally, nice to meet you."
Hermione grinned back and took his hand, "Hermione Granger."
For half a heart-stopping minute they stared into each others' eyes before Tom realised they were still holding hands. He pulled away nervously and laughed a little.
"Sorry," he said, "You…you have really nice eyes."
Hermione giggled, "So do you. You can get so lost in them."
She stopped dead when she realised what she'd just said. Tom just laughed, "Thanks! Do you want to sit down?" He indicated the seat next to him. Hermione smoothed down the front of her robes and sat down, ignoring the fact that she really needed to go to the bathroom. Talking to Tom seemed somehow more important.
"What house are you in?" Hermione asked, "I haven't seen you in Gryffindor."
"I don't know yet," Tom replied.
"Oh, are you a first year?" Hermione asked, surprised; he seemed too mature to be eleven years old.
"No, I'm a fourth year," Tom said, "But I've only just joined."
"Wow! So…what does that make you? A Squib?"
"Nope. I was supposed to get my Hogwarts letter along with everyone else, but the bloody owl got shot on an annual pheasant-shoot. I wouldn't have known if my dog hadn't decided to make a detour on our walk and dug the letter up out of the ground."
"That's quite a story!" Hermione said, impressed.
"Yep," said Tom, leaning back in his seat, "But the story doesn't reflect on the personality, I'm afraid. I'm just an ordinary, pureblood wizard."
"Don't let Draco Malfoy hear you say that, he'll never let you go!"
Tom laughed, "A Slytherin, right?"
"Yeah! How did you know?"
Tom indicated the book on his lap, "I've been doing a little background reading to get myself prepared."
"That's what I did before my first year!" Hermione said.
"Hogwarts is a fascinating school."
"I think so, too!" Hermione was getting more and more excited with every word Tom said.
"Most of the people around here just don't appreciate it."
Hermione was practically hyperventilating.
"Sorry, I have to go," she garbled, dashing out of the room before she fainted. She leaned her back against the wall and breathed deeply. She regained her composure and began to walk back to Harry and Ron, passing Draco on the way.
"I never thought I'd say this," she said to him, "But, thank you!"