Hermione was pulled out of class just before morning break on Monday which completely scuppered her plans. She was lead by one of the upper years to the headmaster's office, tucked away next to the reception. Curious, but not yet nervous, she knocked on the door.
She was surprised to see her parents sat opposite the headmaster who had a thick folder open on his desk. He smiled at her and she grimaced, it was never good to have one's parents called to school like this.
She was offered a seat - one of the hard, red plastic ones that she sat in during class and she settled primly, unconsciously applying all of her lessons in deportment so that she looked more like a princess than a schoolgirl. The headmaster watched her for a moment, and Hermione glanced sideways at her parents, who were watching the headmaster. She turned back to the headmaster.
He was a balding man with the beginnings of a paunch, his suit jacket was slightly too large at the shoulders but fitted well enough otherwise. Hermione's father had always been lucky enough to fit the primark suits as though they were tailored to him, but she guessed most people weren't that fortunate, so unless they could afford a tailor their suits would never be perfect. Her own school dress was cinched tighter with a wide white ribbon and she'd tied matching ribbons around her wrists and middle fingers. It was the latest trend at school; one that she had started of course.
They sat in silence for a long time and Hermione had to fight to keep the smile off her face. Perhaps the adults were trying to get her to talk first, but they had nothing on Lady Grindelwald. She could sit in silence, working on her Occlumency all day.
Finally, her father broke.
'So, what did you call us all here for?' The adults all stirred, and the headmaster cleared his throat, shuffling the papers in the file.
'I wanted to discuss Hermione's progress report.' He began.
'Isn't that usually done at the parent-teacher conference?' Her father interrupted, looking concerned for the first time. 'Hermione's marks aren't bad.'
'No, that's exactly the point. Her grades are exemplary, but there were certain subjects in particular I wished to address with you.' He pulled six pieces of paper out of the folder, laying them out so Hermione's parents could read them. She leaned forwards too, noticing her most recent German assignment, an English assignment and a history essay. She couldn't see anything wrong with them; the handwriting was neat but not excessive like the letter writing script Gellert often used.
'They seem well written, detailed...' Her mother put the English assignment back on the table.
'Well yes, that's just it. The level of the work is particularly high when performed at home, however we have noticed that Hermione seems to distracted in class.'
'You mean she doesn't have any friends?' Her father asked in resignation. The headmaster's bushy brows rose in surprise and he glanced at Hermione quickly.
'Oh no, she has a whole following of friends. I wondered if you had German relatives?'
Both of Hermione's parents straightened and shared puzzled looks.
'Not that I'm aware of?' Her father finally said, looking back at the Headmaster. Cool fear was beginning to trickle through Hermione's chest, freezing her heart and squirming in her stomach.
'Her German teacher found this tucked into the back of her notebook.' The headmaster pulled out another sheet of paper and laid it on the desk. Hermione recognised it instantly as a drafted reply to Gellert's most recent letter. It wasn't too incriminating, she decided; children had imaginary friends all the time, except...
'We were unaware Hermione was fluent in German.' The headmaster finished.
'Fluent?' Hermione's mother said, dumbstruck.
'Her teacher informed me that this is well beyond GCSE language skills, although some of the terminology is a little dated. She also commended Hermione's imagination, this is a rough translation.' The headmaster pulled out yet another sheet of paper, this one covered in the scrawl of her German teacher's handwriting. Her mother took it and scanned through the writing, taking several minutes to read it, then passing the paper to Hermione's father.
'I have a pen friend.' Hermione preempted, 'They had a signup sheet at the post office and when I learned that he was German, I took out several books to learn.'
They really had had a pen pal signup sheet at the post office. Hermione had seen it when she took a bundle of letters down for her mother, but she hadn't signed up. Now that Gellert was at school it was basically like having a pen friend anyway and she saw no need to have another.
'We found talking about everyday school was boring, so we each made up magic schools to go to.' She added, deciding to cover that base too. Her headmaster looked at her for a long time whilst Hermione's mother glanced over the original German sheet. She resisted the urge to shift awkwardly, digging her nails into her palms instead.
'Well, Hermione, I'm very impressed that you've managed to learn another language like this...' Her father started and Hermione restrained her groan. What followed was one of the most embarrassing scoldings she'd ever received - in front of an audience, for something she knew very well was bad and hadn't actually done. The only positive was that it gave her an excuse as to where her pocket money had been going rather than admitting that she'd been spending it on Kevlar sailcloth for her Longma's wings.
Eventually her parents insisted that she give them Gellert's address so that they could write to his mother and the scolding finally finished. The headmaster looked pleased, as though he had done her parents a great favour and Hermione couldn't help but want to jinx that look off his face.
'In the meantime, I would suggest that perhaps Hermione learn another language instead. We have several options on offer; she's studying French already, but perhaps Spanish?' The headmaster suggested. Hermione's nose wrinkled.
'Russian.' She decided. Her parents heads snapped around and the headmaster's eyes bugged slightly.
'Why would you want to learn Russian?' Her father demanded, sounding horrified.
'Its usually a good idea to learn a widespread language, such as Spanish or perhaps Mandarin?' The headmaster suggested. 'We already have a teacher that comes in to teach Mandarin to several students.'
Hermione frowned. Tension was still rife with Russia in the muggle world, despite the recent changes. What she didn't know was whether that attitude was mirrored in the wizarding world. In 1890, the relationship between Germany and Russia was certainly friendly but neither country seemed particularly fond of the British. She had no way of knowing what the current magical political situation was and as such no idea which language would be most beneficial. So, she would chose the language which she had the most chance of practicing and Gellert spoke Russian, rather than Mandarin.
'Definitely Russian.' She decided, 'Gellert, my pen friend, has been learning Russian. We can practice that language too when we write.'
Her parents agreed reluctantly but she had known they eventually would. Her parents were strong believers in learning, but they also believed in learning what interested you rather than struggling through something that didn't. The rest of the meeting consisted of the adults making arrangements for a tutor and agreeing on supplementary payments. She tuned out, already concentrating on how to rescue the plans she'd put in place this morning.
Today, she would be the first in her year to get a boyfriend. She'd chosen her mark carefully; Sam Whiteside was a year above, had smooth, clear skin and soft looking blond hair. He shared few of the aristocratic good looks of her friends in Germany, but he was passable enough to the inexperienced girls of her year group. Most importantly though, he wasn't mind numbingly boring.
A part of her remembered a year ago when she'd never have considered going near a boy - until she'd met Gellert, she'd thought them loud, dirty and boring. She would never have considered asking someone out, and defiantly not for social gain rather than actual romantic feelings. Perhaps the 19th Century attitude to young marriage was affecting her more than she'd thought.
She'd been studying Sam in preparation for today and she'd learned that he spent morning break playing football on the field with the other boys in his year. She was aware that her social status made her desirable enough, and she thought he was interested in her because he'd blushed when she fluttered her eyelashes at him in the corridors. She had dressed particularly nicely today, choosing the white ribbons because they made her tanned skin look like warm caramel and made her eyes sparkle prettily. She'd even snuck some of her mother's lipgloss for the occasion. She had planned to corner him just before they started playing the game when nobody was watching but everyone was likely to overhear and there was an entire break for word to spread.
That plan was ruined of course, she'd have to ask him at lunch which wasn't ideal because he always spent it doing homework in the library. There would be less people watching, but she could hardly not ask him today; she'd been building her circle up to it for ages.
Double art seemed to take hours. Jessica kept making pointed remarks about how she'd chickened out, despite Hermione's explanation (with plentiful eye rolls and emphatic "like seriously"s) being eaten up by the rest of the group. Her effort at recreating pop-art was passable at best and she accidentally answered two questions in a row without the obligatory uhms in History.
Sam was in the library as expected at lunch, already pouring over a quiz about tectonic plates. She checked to make sure her reflection looked good in the little window in the door, then pushed it open before she could change her mind.
She hovered for a long couple of seconds behind his chair before he finally looked up. She swallowed nervously, suddenly feeling like she was up against Lady Grindelwald.
'Hermione, isn't it. You're Jessica's friend.' He said. Hermione scowled internally - she did not want to be known as "Jessica's friend" to anyone, particularly not the boy she was about to ask out... even if she didn't actually like him.
'Yes, but we're not actually that close. I'm better friends with Lily really, and Jessica is her friend.' She babbled, pulling out a chair and sitting down. She hesitated, wondering if it would be best to just as outright, or whether one was meant to have a long conversation before asking someone out. Her decision was made when he began to turn back to his homework, making it clear he didn't really want to participate in idle chatter.
'I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me?' She blurted, then blushed as red as her school uniform. That was a particularly inelegant way to express herself. Sam froze, then turned to face her again.
'What?'
'I was rather hoping that we could spend some time together, on a date.' She elaborated.
'No.' Sam said bluntly, turning back to his work.
Hermione gaped like a fish, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to muster some sort of response to that. She had expected a maybe as a worst case scenario, one where she could perhaps invite him to spend time to get to know her but never had she imagined such an outright refusal.
'Why?' She finally managed.
'Because you're just using me to get more popular.' Sam slapped his pencil to the table with a sharp clack. 'I'm not interested in being used, especially if it means I have to put up with some pretty airhead all the time. I'm trying to get good eleven plus results, so that I can go to a good school. I don't need your drama.'
Rage flooded through Hermione.
'I am not an airhead!' She hissed, her hair almost sparking with her fury. She had to violently shove her magic down as it reacted to her emotions.
'No? You certainly seem like one - queen bee of your little clique, nattering away constantly about ribbons and celebrities.'
She was speechless, fury coursing through her but unable to really deny what he was saying. The front she presented to the rest of the school really was quite airheaded. She did natter about ribbons and celebrities, she deliberately didn't answer questions or work too hard in class. He saw exactly what she wanted the school to see and now it was working against her. She couldn't even argue that it was unfair because it really was a situation of entirely her own making.
'I'll have you know, I'm top of the class in every subject. I'm fluent in German and I have never scored less than an A.' She finally hissed indignantly. She could not fail at this, absolutely could not return to her "clique" having been turned down so thoroughly, especially not because he thought she was stupid!
'Really? I would never have guessed.' Sam replied snarkily. With a frustrated huff, Hermione threw up her hands.
'I pretend to be stupid, okay?' She spat, 'because otherwise I wouldn't have any friends. I was miserable at my last school, so I made myself a new person when I moved here.'
Sam was regarding her with more interest now, a slightly calculating expression on his face that she found vaguely unsettling; it didn't suit his soft, angelic features.
'So now your new person needs a boyfriend?' He demanded, more softly this time.
'No, I need an excuse to not go to the Halloween party. I was planning to have an argument so that I had an excuse to not go.' She admitted. To her surprise Sam barked out a laugh.
'You really are bitch.' He said, but there was a smile on his face that she found incredibly confusing. The young witch had no idea where she stood now, his words and body language told two very different stories. She wished she had the instinctive legilimency skills that would let her casually peruse people's thoughts so that she knew what he was thinking.
'I prefer the term calculating.' Hermione eventually said primly. Sam laughed again.
'Okay, I had you pegged completely wrong. You seem fun enough to be around, so we can pretend to date if you want.' He acquiesced finally. Hermione found herself gawping like a fish again.
'Pretend?' She asked eventually.
'Yes, pretend. You don't like me, I don't like you, but it works for both of us. You get to bail out of this party without ruining your cred, I get to shut up the rumours.'
'Rumours?' She asked, a chill trickling through her.
'Yes. Nancy's been telling everyone I'm gay because I didn't want to dance with her last New Years.'
Hermione smiled faintly, then quickly pulled her own homework out of her bag. It was a German one that she was now fairly sure she didn't have to complete but she didn't want to ruin her perfect record just in case. She spent the rest of lunch with her new pretend boyfriend, allowing herself to be academically brilliant at school for the first time in months.