Harry Potter: How I Met Your Mother
(Because I can't stand Dramione pairings)
Part One : Her Sorting
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, its characters, or its settings. They belong to JK Rowling, Warner Brothers, and Wizarding World. I do claim my original characters: Hands Off!
I am writing this story for my own amusement and ego gratification. I neither expect nor deserve any sort of financial reward for this work of fiction. If you like this story, please write and post a positive review.
Harry Potter: How I Met Your Mother
"How did I meet your mother? It's actually a long and strange story. I met your mother a long time before I decided to court her. I don't know if you'd think it was strange, but it certainly was odd in our time. Back then, blood status was considered very important, and people like me and Grandmother and Grandfather were expected to marry among our magical peers, not people who came to our world from a Muggle background. Also, we came from different houses and very different backgrounds: your Mother was a Muggle-born Gryffindor while I was a Slytherin whose family had been magical for generations. At least most of us.
It was my Fourth year and I was seated with my mates when I saw the little Firsties troop in to be Sorted and placed into their houses. I didn't know it at the time, but your Mum was one of them. I'd grown blasé about the Sorting Ceremony by then: I'd been a participant in one Sorting Ceremony and a spectator in two others. Your uncle Titus was still too young to come to school and I didn't think that any of our cousins were being sorted that year, so I sat back and watched as Professor McGonagall called their names and the little Firsties sat down on the Sorting Stool and the Sorting Hat placed then into their houses. Most of the names meant little to me then: Boot, Bones, Finch-Fletchley, here and there the sprogs from prominent families but most of the rest coming from families of nobodies. Some people say that you can tell who is the get of some Pureblood family and who is the sprog of some Half-blood or Muggle family: that's not necessarily true, at least for nobodies of Muggle parentage or their counterparts from impecunious mixed-bloods or full-blooded families. I do know that a certain young blonde girl with a mane of thick, curly shoulder-length hair momentarily attracted my attention after Professor McGonagall called out her name to be sorted. I had an inkling that there was something out of the ordinary about this one and that I should pay attention to her.
Your mother's sorting took longer than most. The Sorting Hat usually sorts children into their houses rather quickly, less than a couple of seconds in most cases. It didn't with her; in fact, it paused for almost a minute before it sorted her into Gryffindor. She told me much later that the Hat wanted to place her in Ravenclaw, but she argued that she wanted Gryffindor. If you want to hear more about that story you'll have to ask her, not me.
I didn't pay much attention to most of the other Firsties sorted after her. I did make an exception for Draco Malfoy and then for Harry Potter. I paid far more attention to the short, slight, messy-haired boy with the green eyes and spectacles sit down on the sorting stool: this was supposed to be the lad who caused the first downfall of the Dark Lord. I'll have you know that I watched as the hat brim dropped below his nose. I watched as the hat hesitated to call out his house and wondered if I'd witness a full-blown hat-stall, but the hat finally called out "GRYFFINDOR!", much to my disappointment. I hoped he'd go into our house.
-How I Met Your Mother—How I Met Your Mother—How I Met Your Mother—
After the Welcoming Feast, I followed the rest of my house down to the dungeons, as did that year's tranche of little Pureblooded firsties. Severus Snape was Head of House as well as Potions Master that year. I'll talk more about him later sometime; he was a complicated man. Despite the unjust reputation we'd gotten during and after the First Wizarding War for being the haven for dark wizards and witches, Slytherin had been riding high for the last several years. We'd been the holders of the House Cup and Quidditch champions for seven years running. We'd earned it. We achieved our status by dint of hard work and perhaps some excessive rough play over the Quidditch pitch.
Looking backwards, that was a good year to be at Hogwarts. I was in the premier house at school, a house with a rich and often noble history and with deep ties to the Old Ways. There were some problems here and there like the Mountain Troll getting into the castle on Halloween, but not too many of them. That was the first time I'd heard of the Boy-Who-Lived's heroics. If you want to hear more about the troll, ask your Mum. In any event, the Troll was dealt with, but nothing really dangerous occurred until the Spring.
I suppose that I might as well tell you now before you hear it from somebody else, but your mother wasn't the first girl I courted. In fact, in those days I didn't even have the slightest romantic desire for her: instead, I'd been chasing after a girl named Camilla Sanscouer.
Camilla was a Slytherin just like I was. In those days, Slytherins still suffered from a bad reputation left over from the First Wizarding War—so many of the Dark Lord's followers came from our house that many wizards and witches put it about that the Dark Lord's followers were all from our house. That wasn't true: more than a few of his followers also came from Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff, and even Gryffindor. Nevertheless, that was the reputation we'd been cursed with. As a result, our house attitude was us versus the rest of the school, so that when most Slytherin wizards went courting, we went looking among our own, not from the larger pool of witches from the other houses. Camilla came from a family with ties to the Old Blood: she was a cousin of sorts to the Rosiers and the Roots.
I admit I had designs on Camilla: we had drawn close during our time together at Hogwarts and I was already thinking of her as my girlfriend. We liked each other, we came from common backgrounds, and if our parents didn't know each other, they knew of each other. If I didn't marry Camilla, I assumed that I'd probably end up marrying a girl very much like her. Little did I know what fate had in store for my assumptions.
-How I Met Your Mother—
Less than a month after her Sorting Ceremony, I found that I would run across your mother more frequently. She was a constant fixture in the library, reading not only those books related to subjects that first-year students would wish to know, but also books about more advanced magical laws and theory and more difficult and advanced magical charms and spells. At first it was amusing to see this studious, petite, frizzy-haired Muggle-born girl reading books about magical lore more suited to a sixth or seventh-year, but as time wore on I began to admire her. Your mother was very intense and studied hard, unlike many of my fellow Slytherins, who were content to do just what was needed to get by.
Not long after, Hermione and I were quietly reading in the library when we were joined by Draco Malfoy and his two companions Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. I'd already met them: young Malfoy was a prat and the other two were the sorts of blockheads that gave credit to Muggleborn accusations the Pureblooded wizards were far too inbred. Taking sight of your mother, the three of them filed over to our table and began to make what they considered to be witticisms.
"Look, Goyle, there's the little Muggleborn trying to read a book," said Draco.
Goyle made a stupid laugh.
"Can she even read?" said Crabbe.
They continued to make similar comments, breaking my concentration. I wondered where Madam Pince was and why she hadn't come down on them. Perhaps she was helping another student, perhaps she was on break. Either way she wasn't available, and I decided that it was time to intervene. I stood up and looked at Malfoy.
"Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle," I said. "I am trying to study. I find all three of you noisy and distracting." I pulled out my wand from its holster and set it on the table for emphasis. "Miss Granger is quiet, which is more than I can say for your lot. Why don't you Ickles go outside and play?" Malfoy and I locked eyes but I stared him down.
"My father," Draco began.
"Isn't here," I interrupted. "Don't press your luck, Malfoy. Begone."
Malfoy stood there thinking things over, then said "Let's go." The three of them turned around and left.
When the three of them were out of sight and presumably earshot, your Mother looked up and said "Thank you."
I smiled at her and said "Don't mention it."
After that we became favorite reading partners, at least for a while. We didn't read the same books or study the same subjects, but we could research without being distracted by the other. It was a beneficial arrangement: she was a quiet reader (Unless her friends Potter and Ronald Weasley were with her), and my presence discouraged harassment from her contemporaries.
That began to change after Samhain. I already mentioned the Troll incident: a Mountain Troll had somehow gotten into the school and it trapped your mother in a girl's bathroom. After the troll was defeated, she and they became close friends. She and they began to confer more often in the library and what had been quiet study time began to fade into chatter when she and her new mates began discussing her research. I found it increasingly annoying. It was mid-November that I decided that I'd finally had enough distraction. "Miss Granger, could you and your little friends keep it down?" I said.
Your Mum looked at me in surprise, as did Potter while young Weasley looked at me as if I had chosen to live up to every scurrilous accusation the striped tabbies had even heaped on us. Looking at her expression, I felt a moment of guilt. "For your information, you three are making too much noise, and I am trying to study," I said.
"Oh," she said, and blushed.
The three of them resumed their conversation, this time keeping their chatter to a tolerable level.
Yes, yes, I did see Harry Potter play in his first Quidditch game. While I wasn't sure about your Mum's level of interest in Quidditch back then, I was an avid Quidditch fan. When Potter first came out on the Quidditch pitch, I thought he'd been given his position as Seeker as some sort of favor to McGonagall and the Gryffindor team by the Headmaster, but as the game progressed, I watched in amazement at how talented the lad proved to be. He could fly! Oh, could he ever fly! Despite the fact that he'd only been on a broom a few weeks, young Potter flew every bit as well as a Fifth-Year. We lost that game, but despite the grumbling I'd heard afterwards, I knew even then that I'd seen some excellent play. Potter caught the Snitch on pure talent as well as a bit of luck.
A week or two later I found your mother sitting behind what looked like a barricade of books on magical history.
"What are you researching?" I asked. "Is it for class?"
"No, it's for a personal project," she replied a little too brusquely. I suspected that it was for something else, but as is typical for Gryffindors, she still had difficulty with the arts of concealment and misdirection.
Finally, she gave up.
"Can I ask you a question?" said your Mum. "You wouldn't know who Nicholas Flamel is, wouldn't you?"
It was tempting to leave her to search through the library's books for Nicholas Flamel, but I had a soft-hearted streak and gave in just before the Christmas holiday.
"Granger," I said. "Why do you want to know about Nicholas Flamel?"
"Um, no reason," your mother replied. "Just curiosity."
I doubted that it was that. Your mother had yet to play a major part of my life, but I'd seen her conversing with Potter and Ron Weasley about Nicholas Flamel, so I suspected that her interest was far more than idle curiosity. Still, she had a good heart and good intentions, so I doubted that she wanted to flood the dungeons or blow up the school, so I told her.
"Nicholas Flamel was a famed wizard and alchemist who is best known for inventing the Sorcerer's Stone," I said. "Flamel's stone is used to make an elixir that can supposedly grant eternal life."
"Oh" she said. The look of astonishment on her face was highly amusing. She thought things over, then glared at me.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she said.
"Aside from house rivalries, it's because I am afraid that you're about to embark on some hair-brained Gryffindor Firstie escapade and I don't want to see you get into trouble or get expelled," I said. "I like you, and Hogwarts would be a sadder place if you had your wand snapped or were seriously injured."
Your mother rewarded me with another glare, then said "I'm a big girl and can take care of myself." Still fuming, she arose from her chair, said "Good night," then stalked out of the library. It was all I could do to keep myself from laughing at a twelve year old girl claiming that she could take care of herself.
Our Christmas holidays started a couple of days later. I boarded the train and spent most of my journey to King's Cross palling with my mates or doing my best to charm Camilla. Your mother and I hadn't spoken since I told her about Nicholas Flamel. I did see her on the train, though.
I decided that I did want to talk to her before we went our separate ways. About two and half hours into the journey, I made my move. Being a good Slytherin I used the trolley cart and my bulk to block the corridor.
"Granger," I said. "I passed by your compartment. Where is your good friend Mr. Potter?"
She started at me, obviously debating whether to she wanted to talk to me about Potter or talk to me at all. "He's back at Hogwarts," she said.
"I'd have thought that he'd be on the train," I said. "His family should want to see him over the holidays."
"His aunt and uncle-They don't," she blurted out. She frowned. "It's none of your business. Now let me go by."
"Not before I wish you a Merry Christmas," I said, moving to the side so she could pass by me. Your mother glared at me again, then walked down the corridor to her compartment. I left her alone for the rest of the journey. I had more important things to do, like palling with my mates and doing my best to charm Camilla.
