36. Breakfast
She turns eleven on a warm and cloudless night.
The clock in the kitchen strikes twelve and wakes her up.
She feels different. She can't explain why. Hermione tries to shrug the feeling off and go back to sleep. She tosses and turns all night.
Nevertheless, breakfast is cheerful and she chats gleefully with her parents about their plans for that evening. They'll go out to dinner to celebrate her birthday. She gets to pick where.
She's helping herself with a serving of beans when the doorbell rings.
"Finish your breakfast honey, you'll be late to school," her mother kisses her forehead and heads to answer the door, vaguely commenting on the indecency of ringing someone's door that early in the day.
It's a woman. She overhears her talk to her mother. Hermione catches her name being brought up in the conversation and gets up to see who it is.
"Where are you going pumpkin?" her dad enquires without raising his nose up from the newspaper he is reading.
She doesn't reply. Something important is going on.
Her mother lets the woman enter their house and offers to bring her a cup of tea.
The woman is dressed in emerald green robes and has kind eyes. She smiles warmly when she notices Hermione observing her.
"Are you Hermione?"
She nods, suddenly at a loss of words. She can feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest.
"My name is Minerva McGonagall. I'm here to speak to you."
I'm here to change your life forever.
"I'm a teacher at a school called Hogwarts, have you heard of it?"
Hermione frowns and shakes her head. "Should I have?"
"No," and McGonagall says strongly, "it's not supposed to be known amongst Muggles."
"Muggles?"
"Non-magical people."
Her mother drops the tray she was holding, teacups break and tea get spill on the carpet. McGonagall takes her wand out and points it toward the ground.
Reparo.
Hermione doesn't go to school that day.
