It was one o'clock in the morning, and Emma was sat up in her bed in the girl's dormitories, her eyes wide and bloodshot. Her bed was a mess of upturned covers and pillows where she had desperately thrashed around to try and find the right position to fall asleep in. It was no use, no matter how tired she was. Maybe reading this would work, she thought to herself, as she pulled A History of Magic, by Bathilda Bagshot from a large bag she kept under her bed. Emma speculated that this book could probably be substituted for sleeping pills, lest its effects are so strong it sends you into a coma. In her dozy state, the book slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor with a thud. Emma cursed, hoping she hadn't woken any of the girls up. She scanned the large four-poster bed's around her, hoping not to see any movement. The only girl in her dormitory she had spoken to during the feast was Lavender Brown, who was nice enough, but who's giggling and chattiness had been grating, especially when Emma was trying to tuck into her plate of liver, bacon and gravy. She let out a quiet sigh of relief when no movement came from Lavender's bed.
For the third time in the past twenty-four hours, Emma nearly jumped out of her skin again when a hushed voice came from her left.
"Why are you awake?" a high whisper asked, "I hope you're not planning to leave the dormitories, you'll get into trouble!"
Emma whirled around and saw a bushy-haired girl with large front teeth facing her. She was sat up in her bed, squinting at her through the sleep in her eyes.
"Sorry," Emma whispered back. "I can't sleep."
The bushy-haired girl yawned, before glancing at the book lying face down on the floor. "What were you reading?"
"The most boring book I could find," Emma laughed, expecting at least to receive a polite laugh back. To her surprise, however, the bushy-haired girl seemed livelier and more awake now.
"That's a History of Magic," the girl slid out of her bed quietly and came closer to Emma. "I think it's tremendously interesting".
"Oh." Emma didn't know what to say to this, so she simply gestured for the girl to sit with her. The girl sat slowly, trying not to make too much noise.
"I'm Hermione. Hermione Granger." the girl whispered, offering her hand.
"Emma.", she replied, returning the handshake. "You like books then?".
With this one question, Emma had hit the jackpot. The stream of babble and chat that poured out of Hermione's mouth in response to this sent a haze straight over Emma's mind.
"The Standard Book of Spells is-"
"Did you know bezoars can be used-"
All Emma truly gained an interest when listening to Hermione was when they came to the subject of wands. Emma retrieved hers from the bag under her bed, delicately lifting it from the box she'd received it in. She presented it to Hermione proudly, gesturing for her to take it. Hermione, considerate of the care Emma had shown in retrieving it, took it with an extremely light and delicate grip.
"It's 12 and ¾ inches, Ebony, with a Unicorn hair core."
The wand was jet black in colour, sleek and smooth in appearance, with no visible grain of the wood. A small ringed knot was placed at the bottom end of the wand, and an identical knot around a third of the way up the handle. The space between these two knots was textured, creating a grip for the user to hold.
"It's wonderful," Hermione whispered, giving the wand a slight wave.
"Show me yours," asked Emma.
The two compared wands for a short while, before Hermione somehow got on to the topic of the properties of Murtlap tentacle, and began discussing it at length. Emma nodded absently as she talked, her eye's glazing over.
It wasn't long before her eyes had drooped closed, and she laid her head on the mattress. Her last thought before falling into a deep slumber was 'I wonder if she'll notice?'
Now halfway into her first week at Hogwarts, Emma had begun to agree with The Sorting Hat's assessment of her wit. Magic wasn't just shooting different coloured sparks out of her wand, it had turned out, and involved a lot of patience and study to perform. Emma felt relieved when she realised that her struggle with her lessons was pretty much unanimous among her peers, at least among the Gryffindor's. She had come to this realisation, after nudging the boy next to her in her History of Magic class.
"When was Emeric the Evil born again?", she asked him.
He looked at her in worry and replied in a thick Irish accent, "I was going to ask you."
What Emma had learned for definite was that Hermione was the best student in Gryffindor, and so she would often approach for help in between or during classes. There was something non-academic that she had wanted to ask Hermione however, so she approached her in the Gryffindor common room during a free period. It looked like Hermione was the first person to arrive at the common room, as it was empty besides her.
Hermione was seated on one of the large red armchairs, scribbling notes on to a sheet of parchment. Emma plopped herself on one of the arms of her chair.
"Hermione, why is everyone talking about that Harry boy?"
"Harry Potter?", Hermione looked up at Emma, putting down her quill and parchment. "Well he's-"
"Only the most famous wizard of our age!" Seamus Finnigan had wandered into the Gryffindor common room just after Emma, having just caught Emma's question to Hermione. Seamus sat in the closest armchair and gave Emma a puzzled look. "Aren't ya a pureblood Emma? Surely ya know Harry Potter!"
Emma explained to Seamus what she had already explained to Hermione, that she had lived most of her life not knowing magic even existed. Emma was strangely thankful for this after meeting Hermione as it allowed them to relate to each other, Hermione being muggle-born.
"Well anyway, Harry Potter," Seamus Finnigan lowered his voice to a whisper, and scanned the common room in case the person in question came wandering in, "is famous for beating the most powerful dark wizard to ever live."
Emma frowned. "But he's our age."
"That's the thing!" said Seamus. "When He Who Must Not Be Named...killed Harry's mum and dad," Seamus scanned the room again, "he tried to kill Harry too when Harry was just a baby."
"He Who Must Not Be Named?"
"No one says his name." Seamus shivered, "at least no one who knows about him."
"So how did Harry stop him?"
"No one knows." Seamus shrugged. "All anyone knows is that the most feared wizard of all time walked into that house, and the only living thing left inside by the end of the night was Harry Potter, with a scar like a lightning bolt on his forehead."
"Oh. Proper famous then." said Emma, slightly taken aback. She thought he might've been a young rock-star or something, not a vanquisher of evil wizards. "Bet he's a right smarmy git," she joked.
"Not at all!" Hermione squeaked. "He's like you and me. He didn't even know magic existed."
Emma's curiosity had only been piqued further. The most famous wizard of the age, only eleven years old, and didn't even know he was famous?
Seamus jumped with fright, then tried to nonchalantly play with his sleeve, when the boy who's name was on everyone's tongue walked into the common room. Hermione went back to scribbling notes. Emma looked up, and cast her eyes towards him, not caring if it looked like she was staring because after all, she was. Harry Potter was short and skinny, with messy black hair. He was unimposing, but his eyes were a bright emerald green. They came in to direct contact with Emma's eyes when he had seen her staring, but he glanced away quickly. Another boy with bright, fiery red hair and freckles joined Harry on one of the large red sofas.
Emma was just about to introduce herself when no sooner had she stood up than it was time to go back to class. It was potions next.
As the days passed, Emma became a better and better student. Hermione was an excellent tutor and was always happy when Emma showed a genuine interest in learning from her. Perhaps the biggest lesson Emma received from Hermione was unintentional. After seeing Hermione scribble notes for hours or constantly doing pre-reading for her lessons in the library, she realised something. Hermione wasn't just an effortless genius, she was a genius through effort. Emma had taken to joining her while she studied, occasionally skimming through Hermione's handwritten notes. While she didn't study with nearly the ferocity of Hermione, her understanding in lessons had improved remarkably, and she was beginning to enjoy her lessons rather than dread them. Emma's favourite lesson was probably potions. She had a delicate hand and followed the instructions for brewing to an exact degree. Even Snape's sourness to all the Gryffindor's couldn't take away the satisfaction Emma would gain after brewing the perfect solution. Snape would look into Emma's cauldron, nod his head slightly, then continue his patrol of the class. All things considered, Emma saw this is as a glowing review, given how Snape critiqued her classmates with spite and abandon. She had noticed Snape had a particular disdain for Harry, bullying him at any opportunity.
When Emma wasn't studying with Hermione, she would often hang around with Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas, exchanging small talk and gossiping about whatever was in The Daily Prophet that day.
"Update's on the Gringott's break-in," Seamus would remark offhandedly.
"Gringotts?" her and Dean would ask, incredulously.
It was good that Seamus was more familiar with The Wizarding World than her and Dean, as he would often explain things, that were perfectly ordinary to him, to the two of them.
Emma had probably at least spoken to every member of Gryffindor house, and some of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw too, but she had still never spoken to the famous Harry Potter. She had even spoken to Harry's friend Ron Weasley, who was almost inseparable from Harry himself. This was only briefly though, as it was only after Ron asked Emma how to chop his potion ingredients quicker that they had even become aware of each other's names.
Emma had cheered and whooped with the rest of Gryffindor when Harry had embarrassed Draco Malfoy during their first flying lesson. Emma had a deep disdain for Malfoy, who was ghastly and mean spirited, and felt a deep primal satisfaction when he had been shown up by Harry. After Harry had been dragged away by Professor McGonagall, Emma sidled up next to Neville and gave him a light slap on the shoulder.
"Don't you dare let that slime Malfoy bully you like that any more Neville, okay?" Emma growled. What was supposed to be words of support had turned to words of anger as Emma thought about Malfoy's nasty antics. She felt slightly guilty about not having spoken to Neville since her first day, and the idea of Draco pushing him around truly wound Emma up.
"I never know what to do," Neville whined.
"Well I'd tell you what I'd do but that would probably get us both into trouble," Emma grumbled. "Just say, if he tries to insult you, 'Malfoy, close your mouth, your breath stinks worse than Snape's under robes'".
Neville giggled, and Emma heard a snigger from her left as Ron Weasley pulled up beside them.
"I wouldn't let Snape hear you say that. He'd probably set the common room on fire," said Ron. His face soured a little after saying this though. "Hope Harry hasn't gotten into trouble."
Emma glanced over at Neville and saw him staring guiltily at the ground, part of him clearly wishing Harry hadn't defended him.
"He'll be fine," Emma waved a hand dismissively. "What on earth do they expect we're going to do if they give us flying machines! Hover safely, three inches above the ground?"
Seamus Finnigan piped up, and Emma could hear the smile in his voice. "Good thing hovering a few inches above the ground is about all you can manage."
Emma smiled and stuck out her tongue at Seamus.
Emma had a very strange dream that night. She was in a forest clearing, watching a huge Stag and a gigantic Snake battling each other ferociously. Emma tried to keep herself away from the carnage as they uprooted trees and destroyed everything around them, but everywhere she ran they followed, still clawing and biting at each other endlessly. The Stag knocked into a great Oak tree, which tumbled with a deafening crunch. Emma could only stare as the tree fell towards her, engulfing her vision in its shadow. Emma woke with a start before the tree crushed her, her ears unconsciously perked. Something had woke her. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, and saw Hermione tiptoeing down the steps to the common room in her dressing gown. Emma called out to her, but her voice was too hoarse to be audible, and Hermione disappeared down the staircase. Emma forced herself up out of bed, her body protesting but her mind willing, and pulled on a large oversized shirt before descending the stairs to the common room with a light step.
"I almost told you're brother!"
"Almost told what?", Emma arrived at the common room, curious at the scene in front of her. Both Harry Potter and Ron Weasley seemed ready to leave the common room, and Hermione was facing them defiantly, her arms crossed.
"Oh well done," Ron hissed at Hermione. "You've woke up half the house!"
Hermione turned to her. "Oh Emma, good! Tell these two they're being foolish!"
"Oh tell her to shove off and mind her own business, Emma", Ron groaned.
"Where are you going?" she directed this question pointedly at Harry, hoping to actually speak to him for the first time.
"The trophy room. Malfoy wants to duel me." Harry explained.
"I'm his second." Ron said, proudly.
The thought of Malfoy tumbling through the air in panic, or running through the halls with his robes on fire gave Emma a wide smile.
"Oh brilliant," she beamed at Harry, who perhaps slightly put off by her oddly wide smile, politely smiled back. "Let's thrash him."
Hermione and Ron spoke with simultaneous and opposite reactions.
"Haha, yes!" Ron exclaimed. "I knew you were alright, Emma!"
"Emma!", Hermione looked shocked and turned her disapproving look to Emma. "I didn't think you were so stupid!"
"Oh come on Hermione!", Emma skipped to the door. "Imagine Malfoy getting trounced by Harry. Again!" And in one quick moment, Emma swung the common room door open and left.
"Bloody hell," Ron remarked, "if we don't follow her soon, she'll end up duelling her himself!"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione, albeit angrily, followed Emma outside the common room.
The four of them darted back into the common room.
"He tricked us," hissed Emma, panting with fury and exhaustion. "That slimy git tricked us!"
"Never mind that!" Ron replied, panting as well. "What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school! If any dog needs exercise, that one does!"
Hermione had regained her breath and her bad temper back again.
"You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?", she snapped. "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"
"The floor?" Harry suggested. "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with the heads."
Hermione ranted on at the three of them, before angrily marching up to bed. Emma swore under her breath and chased after her, but by the time she had gotten to the girl's dormitories, Hermione was already pretending to be asleep, ignoring Emma. Emma sighed and got into her own bed. She entered an uneasy sleep, adrenaline still coursing through her body after their dangerous encounter with the three-headed dog, but most of all desperately hoping Hermione wouldn't still be angry with her come the morning.