School: Hogwarts

Year: 1

Theme: King's Cross

Prompts: "Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears." - Rudyard Kipling [Main]/ Muggle Playground/ Superior

WC: 2,358 words

A/N: So when reading HP, Hermione to me shows signs of having Asperger's. This is delving into that and showing her growing up along with her magic developing. Also my use of the quote is the spirit of it rather than the actual words. Thanks SilvermistRuhi for the beta and Paseco for all the help on this!

The Right Thing

When Hermione Granger was born into the family of Jean and Harold Granger, they knew there was something special about her. They couldn't figure out what it was, but she had an air that told them that there was something different about her.

From the time they got her home, she was the smiliest baby around. She copied every face that was made to her. When her parents smiled, she bared her gummy mouth. After a few months, she had perfected the frown that her father held when he was concentrating.

She was really quite a remarkable child, but there was still something that was different about her. An air of magic hung around her. Her parents merely assumed that it was because of their long wait for her to be born. They doted on their rainbow baby and every little thing that she did, they rejoiced in the achievements.

While Hermione was a quiet and happy child, her parents began to notice little things as she began to develop. Most children grab their toes as they begin to explore. It happened to be one morning when Jean was watching her precious baby girl, that she noticed her trying to catch her toes as she lay on her play mat.

The little chubby fingers reached for the wiggling extremities above but missed on more than one occasion. In her curiosity, Jean reached for a small teddy bear and held it just out of reach of her daughter's hands. Hermione's little hand grabbed for the soft fur but missed the edge of it. Jean tilted one of the legs closer to her and Hermione tried again. A small frown formed and her tiny pink tongue stuck out slightly in her effort, but again, she missed the bear. Jean frowned slightly and put the bear down just out of Hermione's reach, not noticing her daughter's scowl at the elusive teddy. Hermione reached out her hand again and grunted. Her eyes flashed in determination and something else.

Jean turned her back on the baby for a moment and picked up the book behind her so she could read to Hermione. When she returned her focus to Hermione, she found Hermione with her hands buried in the soft fur of the teddy bear. She smiled softly.

"There's nothing wrong with you, baby girl, is there?" she cooed. "You just need a little more time, isn't that it? Yes, it is," she continued speaking softly to the small baby whose pleased expression faded to tiredness as the effort of her struggles began to set in. Jean transferred her daughter to her cot and watched her eyes flutter shut.

Jean's initial worries over her daughter's hand-eye coordination faded as she began to contemplate the small brown bear, still clutched in Hermione's grip. She was sure that she had placed that outside Hermione's range. How had she managed to get it?

"Maybe there's something special about you after all, baby girl," Jean whispered, smiling at the sleeping baby. She softly closed the door and walked out of the room, thinking of her special rainbow baby.

As Hermione grew up, she learned all the things that other children did but she seemed to struggle with the basic things. Her intellect was astonishing but her motor skills weren't always perfect. When she began to walk, she was balancing on the tips of her toes. Her walk tended to make her wobble a little more and regularly bumping into things. This was something that worried her parents but it didn't seem to stop her. She was excelling in everything else so they didn't let it hinder their appreciation of their little girl.

When it came to building blocks, she was able to recite the colours and shapes as soon as she could talk, but when it came to actually sorting them, she was never able to quite get them into the spaces on the first go. There were little things that began to show her difference to other children of her age.

One event that stood out to her parents in particular was the first time she was brought to the playground to play with the other children. They had brought her there before but this was the first time she was being allowed to be free and explore. Jean freed her from the buggy and Hermione, being Hermione, began to explore.

She watched the other children as they clambered over each other to get to the top of the big slide, its bright red colour glinting in the rare English sunshine. The speed and climbing didn't look fun and she quickly dismissed that. Hermione turned and watched as other children played in the big, white box full of strange stuff and she wandered over to there. She followed a girl with very blonde hair and copied her as she padded over the moving ground before plopping down into it.

Hermione landed beside her with a grin before her smile slipped and her nose wrinkled. Her hands were in some sort of gritty material. She raised her hands and shook them attempting to get the yucky stuff off. When that didn't work, her frown deepened and she shook her hands harder. It wasn't meant to be stuck to her. It should go. Hermione got up and started to stumble across to her mother.

She didn't see the little yellow plastic spade handle sticking out of the sand. With a sharp intake of breath, she pitched forward and landed flat. Now the icky stuff was everywhere and she couldn't get it off anywhere. She began to breathe heavier and pushed herself up, walking quicker towards her mother, tears beginning to form in her eyes. She reached Jean, who was happily chatting to another new mother, and shook her hands again.

"Mommy, get it off," she cried. Her mother turned to Hermione and tried to help her. She brushed her soft skin, getting all the bits she could see off until it was clean, but Hermione still shook her hands. "It's still there, Mommy. Get it off, please!" Jean grimaced slightly before conceding that it was the end of their park day. Hermione was quickly bundled into the buggy and brought home where she was plopped into a bath until all the icky stuff was gone.

After she was in bed, her mother recounted the day to her father.

"It concerns me a little bit, Harold," Jean said quietly. "She nearly had a panic attack over a little bit of sand."

"I'm sure it's nothing, dear," Harold said, shaking his head at his wife slightly. "Our Hermione just doesn't like sand. She's not the only child who doesn't. We'll just keep her away from it and if it turns out that she prefers books, that's perfectly fine too. She's our own special little girl."

"I hope that's all it is," Jean said as she snuggled deeply into her husband's side.

Hermione's beginning at school was an experience for all involved. Her teacher was never quite sure what to do about the intelligent little girl. She flew through the topics that the teacher brought up. Her reading skills came on drastically—once she could read, of course—and yet, there were still issues with her basic skills. She didn't immediately interact with the children in her classes and instead resolved to find her comfort in books. Despite her issues with the Muggle actions, slowly her magic began to form and strengthen, unnoticed by all until her frustration began to show.

When it came to learning how to tie shoelaces, Hermione couldn't seem to get her fingers to do the movements that they were meant to. She studied how to do it, she watched how to do it and yet, it just wouldn't work for her. Her fingers just wouldn't listen! Hermione began to stamp her feet on the floor as she sat on the bottom step of the stairs.

"I can't do it, Mommy! It just won't work for me!" she cried. "I don't want to wear these silly shoes. I want to wear the other ones." She stomped her feet a few more times and suddenly, her shoes disappeared. Her little, white sock-covered feet made less of a noise as they stamped on the wooden floor. She stopped immediately and stared down at her shoeless feet in horror with big, wide eyes.

"Hermione? Where are your shoes?" her mother asked, frantically hurrying to gather everything up to leave the house.

"I don't know," Hermione answered honestly. Her mother looked around quickly and couldn't see the little shoelace runners anywhere.

"Right," Jean sighed, "just put these ones on." She tossed a pair of plimsolls on the floor in front of Hermione who quickly pulled them. They were more cooperative than the other shoes and she was very soon ready to go.

But Hermione spent the rest of the day wondering where her shoes could possibly have gone. She wondered about them the whole way through her classes. They kept her thoughts occupied as other children mocked her for sitting with a book instead of playing on the playground. Hermione knew that she had the right idea, but no matter how much she had previously insisted to the other children that dirt was awful, none of them listened to her.

So she sat with her book and ridiculed the way they played. Why were they using their imaginations to pretend to be pirates and princesses? Did they not know that by reading, their imaginations are put to use in a better way?

As they roamed the gravel and rubber, Hermione pondered the whereabouts of her shoes. Maybe they'd show up when she returned home...

That night, as Hermione was getting ready for bed, she dropped her reliable teddy on the ground and bent down to get it. There, tucked neatly together in their space under her bed, lay her missing shoes. The question on Hermione's mind that night was how on earth did they get there?

The night of her 11th birthday, a strange, tall woman came to visit. Her long emerald cloak trailed along the ground, her oval glasses perched on the end of her nose. Hermione longed to push the glasses back up; whether it was just to make her seem less serious or to just put them back in place, she did not know, but they were wrong.

When the strange woman told Hermione that she was a witch, the pieces all seemed to be fitting in together. This was why she felt different to the other children. This was why she didn't like doing all the things that they did. Why the nasty sand always felt icky under her palms and why she preferred to be clean and dry. Her parents had always told her that she was special. They hadn't realised just how right they were.

Hermione didn't let the book that Professor McGonagall—the strange woman—had left for her out of her sight. She sat on the edge of the playground and absorbed every word that the book gave. Hermione learned all about herself and about others like her. After her trip to the magical street in London, she was able to learn more about this fascinating world. As others learned about correct English grammar, she learned about Potions and Transfiguration. She learned everything she could until finally, she thought she was ready to go.

When Hermione arrived in Hogwarts, she knew this was it. This was where she belonged. She wasn't going to be ridiculed for not liking dirt or hating the feeling of the scratchy plastic slide on her legs. All the studying and reading that she had done had prepared her. She was ready to be a part of this world

As time went on though, Hermione could feel it happening again. The outsider that she was at home wasn't meant to flood over into this world. These people were meant to be like her. They were meant to accept her for her.

And yet, they didn't! They called her out on the fact that she was a "teacher's pet"—she wasn't. She was just right—and they avoided her for her blood. They called her muddy. Her insides were different here. Just not in the same way they were before. It was after a class with Professor Flitwick that it all came to a head. Following behind the "boy-who-lived"—ridiculous name. Everybody has lived—and his carrot-topped friend, she listened in on the conversation. She knew it was about her. All anybody did was rant about her.

"It's no wonder no one can stand her," she heard Ron say. "She's a nightmare, honestly." She couldn't believe it. Out of all the people to ridicule her, Hermione didn't think it would be the boy who would burn up at the sight of the sun. She went to walk around them but without realising where her arms were, she managed to shoulder the boy with glasses. Her eyes filled with tears as she continued on to the bathrooms that she knew no one entered.

If she had managed to control her emotions, she wouldn't have been there when the troll came in. If she hadn't constantly opened her mouth to correct people, she could have been sitting with others at the dinner table. If any number of things had been changed, she wouldn't have ended up being pulled into "adventures" with the disastrous duo.

But maybe, just maybe, the two boys liked her more than they let on. Maybe there was more to them than just getting annoyed at her. After all, they came looking for her. Hermione latched onto the two and carefully thought about it. Maybe, just maybe, this was the right thing after all. This would be the key to her fitting in at Hogwarts. Having friends that care is something that Hermione never had. Hogwarts came through for her in the end. After all, if someone cares enough to rescue you from a troll, the least you can do is make sure they don't get killed either. Even if they do seem determined to die.

As always, lovely readers, please read and review.