A/N: Thank you for your time!

Chapter 6: Hestia

Hermione giggled as Neville coughed and spluttered, reaching over to thump him on the back.

He had somehow summoned enough courage to nibble on the end of a little grey bean he had fished out of the box labelled 'Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans' and she could tell he regretted it. Hermione herself preferred the pumpkin pasties they had bought from the dimpled lady who had been pushing a food cart through the train at half twelve - but had yet to understand the appeal of the pumpkin juice she had also been selling.

"It's - well, it's just so common, I suppose," Neville had said. "It would be like asking why the English drink tea."

Hermione found that she got along famously with Neville. Although shy at first, Neville had warmed to her considerably and Hermione felt that their easy camaraderie was in part due to his endearingly guileless nature as well as what she believed was the shared experience of a friendless childhood.

The countryside that was speeding by the window had just become wilder when Neville pulled a little jar of what appeared to be dead flies out of his pocket and leaned over to his terrarium. Hermione watched as his face suddenly drained of colour.

"Neville, are you alright?"

"Trevor," he whispered hoarsely. "Gran is going to kill me - I've lost him again!"

Hermione reached over and patted Neville on the shoulder comfortingly.

"It's alright, I'll help you find him. You go ahead and look through the train corridor - I'll look around here and then come and find you."

Neville stuttered his thanks and tripped over his shoes as he left. Hermione shook her head - she still didn't understand why anyone would want to keep a toad - but obligingly searched the corners and underneath the seats of their compartment. Empty-handed and no toad in sight, Hermione sighed and stepped out into the train corridor. Walking to the nearest compartment, Hermione knocked on the door and then slid it open.

"Sorry," she began, then fell silent as she was faced with the same pale boy from earlier. He was sitting with a girl with mousy brown hair and a slightly upturned nose and a dark skinned boy that sneered at her from where he was lounging near the window. The pale boy began to frown, eyes flickering to her green hair ribbon, and Hermione stepped out of the compartment hastily, slamming the door shut. There was murmuring from within the compartment, then a loud, derisive laugh. Hermione felt heat rise to her cheeks as she ripped the ribbon out of her hair and stuffed it into her robe pocket.

She was still flustered as she scurried to the next compartment, bumping into Neville.

"Are you alright Hermione?"

"Just fine," she said, wincing as she noted that her voice had become a little shrill. "I searched our compartment but I couldn't find him. I don't think he was in the compartment I just checked. Toads like damp and dark places, so we should probably check somewhere like that - you know, like mossy rocks or wet leaves. I mean, that's where I would go if I were a toad."

Neville's eyes widened and Hermione clamped her mouth shut, embarrassed. She tended to ramble when she was caught off guard. It was why she had never been a very good liar.

Hermione turned and slid open the next compartment door, so unsettled that she didn't knock, and found a ginger haired boy with a scruffy rat on his lap, wand held aloft.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost his," she interrupted, wincing internally. She usually wasn't this rude. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Hermione missed what the red-haired boy had said next as her eyes caught his wand.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Lets see it then," she said, excited at the prospect of learning a new spell, and perched herself on the seat next to a dark haired boy that shared the compartment. Neville hovered uncertainly at the doorway.

The boy cleared his throat, lifted his wand and mumbled a ridiculous rhyme. The rat on his lap remained a dull grey and Hermione sat back, unimpressed. It must have showed on her face because the boy gave her a disgruntled look that set Hermione's teeth on edge.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" Hermione knew her voice had turned from enthusiastic to snotty but she couldn't seem to help herself - she'd about had it with ill-tempered boys. "It's not very good, is it?"

Neville shifted and Hermione clamped her mouth shut again, disappointed in herself. Her behaviour was in no way helping with her hope for a less isolated school experience.

"Sorry. My name is Hermione Granger," she said contritely. The two boys were still staring at her, stunned, and Hermione's fingers began to fidget in her lap. She gestured at Neville and introduced him too.

"I'm Ron Weasley," muttered the ginger.

"Harry Potter," said the dark haired boy.

"Goodness, are you really?"

Harry's eyes turned flat and distant at her outburst and Hermione frowned.

"You're in a lot of the books I bought for extra reading," Hermione murmured, noting his surprise with concern. "I think you should take a look at them. I would, if I were you."

There was silence. Hermione didn't know how to bring up libel and defamation without stepping out of bounds so instead awkwardly stood from the seat and bid them goodbye, Neville dogging her steps back to their compartment.

Hermione pulled the window shade down to block the amber glare of the setting sun, blinking as a torch flared to life above the compartment door. Neville rummaged through his trunk, still forlorn at the loss of Trevor and what he described as impending doom in the form of his formidable grandmother, and pulled out his school robes.

Hermione could tell that Neville came from wealth. The brass fittings of his polished trunk shone in the firelight and his robes were somehow darker and softer than her own despite the matching Hogwart's crest on the right breast. The only thing he seemed to own that had not been bought new was his wand, which he had described to her was his father's before it had been handed down to him.

Hermione did not pry into his family circumstances. She had already considered that if Neville had been raised by his grandmother that something terrible must have happened to his parents and afforded him the same privacy she would have wanted for herself if she had been in the same situation. Still, there was the matter of his unmatched wand.

"Neville," she began hesitantly, looking at his wand which was resting on the seat next to him. Neville glanced down at it.

"I know. The wand chooses the wizard," he whispered, picking up his father's wand and staring at it. Although carefully polished, the oddly singed end and the various nicks and scratches that marred the wood were thrown into sharp relief in the flickering torchlight. He looked up at her, eyes large and sorrowful. "But what could I do?"

Hermione sighed heavily and nodded, directing him instead to the interesting looking plants in Trevor's terrarium. If there was one thing she had learned about him it was that he really loved plants - the odder, the better.

Neville was five minutes into the surprisingly fascinating history and uses of a dark green moss - one which One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi had neglected to cover in detail - when they were both startled by a howl and the slamming of a door. Hermione stood and peered into the corridor but stepped quickly back when the pale haired boy stormed past, his previously slicked-back hair in disarray. He was flanked by two large walking boulders, one of whom was nursing a bleeding knuckle.

"Draco Malfoy," said Neville quietly, nodding after the trio. Hermione sniffed. What an absolutely ridiculous name.

They both ducked into the corridor and stared wide eyed at the mess in Harry and Ron's compartment.

"You haven't been fighting, have you?" Hermione was aghast. She bent down to gather what looked like wizarding trading cards and handed them back to Harry, pausing to read the card entitled 'Albus Dumbledore'.

"Scabbers was fighting, not us," grumbled Ron as Harry thanked her. Hermione looked up from the card in her hand and glanced at the mangy rat she supposed was Scabbers, sniffing in distaste. As much her father hated birds, Hermione hated rodents.

"He seems like a horrid boy," Hermione stated, looking over her shoulder into the corridor as if worried her words would summon the blond haired boy. Neville nodded emphatically and Ron snorted. Harry recounted the story of meeting the boy at Madame Malkin's as he swept pasty crumbs from the seats.

Hermione waved her wand, which had been clutched tightly in her hand, and watched as a good portion of the debris disappeared with a muttered 'Scourgify'.

"Thanks," muttered Ron, clearly and unwillingly impressed, before explaining that Draco Malfoy was the son of a known supporter of the dark wizard that had killed Harry's parents.

"The Malfoys were one of the first to come to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it."

Hermione nodded again and glanced out the darkening window before she spoke.

"You'd better change into your robes. I think we're nearly there."

The platform was crowded with students, most of whom were proceeding towards a line of carriages stationed at the base of the hill. A large man - though large seemed like an understatement - was calling for all first years to follow him to a crumbling dock with an equally decrepit fleet of little boats bobbing merrily in the water next to it.

"No more 'n four to a boat!"

Hermione reached out and snagged the sleeve of Neville's robe, dragging him to the boat that Harry and Ron were cautiously stepping into. Neville looked at the boat and at the black waters that surrounded it, before gulping and clambering in after Hermione. Once seated he kept his eyes resolutely fixed to the giant man that had commandeered a boat to himself. Hermione hid a smile and scooted close to Neville, pressing her arm against his in a silent gesture of comfort.

With a tap of an absurdly pink umbrella the fleet shot forward. Neville looked a bit green as he clutched the side of their boat, but when they ducked under a curtain of ivy even he was distracted from his almost perpetual state of terror by the resplendence of the castle.

"Oh my goodness," whispered Hermione reverently. Harry looked over his shoulder at her, grinning almost deliriously, and she saw in his startling green eyes the same feeling that had enveloped her at the sight.

They were home.

The doors to the castle were ludicrously large, towering over their small frames and dwarfing even Hagrid.

Harry had explained to her who the giant man was as they slipped and slid over the mossy stone pier, Ron reaching back and grabbing the collar of Neville's robes as he almost fell backwards into the water. Even the threat of near drowning hadn't dampened Neville's spirits - Hagrid had found Trevor hidden aboard a rowboat.

Magic swirled thick in the air around her as Hermione stepped closer to the door. Her already uncontrollable hair seemed to spark at the ends and Hermione shivered as Hagrid knocked his fist heavily against it. The door swung open to reveal Professor McGonagall standing imperiously before them and Hermione couldn't help but grin.

The new first years trailed after the professor as she strode through the stone floors towards a small antechamber. She turned to face them and delivered a short monologue about the sorting, ending it with a recommendation to 'smarten up' before disappearing through a wooden door to the great hall beyond. Hermione fidgeted, gripped with a sudden nervousness, and smoothed her hands down her robe front. She glanced at Neville and reached over to straighten his cloak, then turned to Ron who had just finished a muttered conversation with Harry.

"You have a bit of dirt on your nose," she whispered to him, then motioned to the left side of his face. "Just there."

Ron pinked and began scrubbing his face with his robe sleeve after a muttered 'thank you'.

Hermione smiled and looked away, pushing her hair back from her face and twisting to glance around the room. Her eyes caught Draco Malfoy's and she stood rooted to the spot, staring unblinkingly back at him. Hermione's eyebrows quirked into a frown and she watched as his face mirrored hers.

There was a shriek and Hermione's eyes snapped up before she took a few steps back in shock.

"Are those -"

"Ghosts," Neville whispered, nodding. "One of my ancestors haunts our stables."

Hermione giggled a little hysterically at the absurdity of his statement.

The group quieted as Professor McGonagall reappeared and motioned for them to form a line. Hermione shuffled next to Neville and fisted her trembling hands into her robe pockets. Neville lightly bumped his shoulder into hers and she smiled at him. Hermione took a deep breath as the professor began to speak.

"It's time for your sorting. Please follow me."

A/N: Please do leave a review!