Disclaimer: Nothing but the plot is mine.
Today was the day. Hermione had woken up with butterflies swirling around in her stomach in anticipation and nervousness. She was finally going to Hogwarts. A place where she belonged.
"Daddy, we're going to be late!" she cried while tramping down the stairs in such a hurry that she nearly fell. Truthfully though, she was hours early. It was 7:00 and the train didn't leave until 1:00. The Grangers only lived about 10 minutes from King's Cross. They had plenty of time. "I'm going to miss the train and then what will I do? They won't let me come. Or they'll think I changed my mind and don't want to come. Oh no! Daddy we have to go now!" Hermione wailed as she tried to tug a brush through her tangled curls. Looking up from his morning paper her father just chuckled at his normally polished daughter's appearance. She really was a hilarious sight to see. Hair all mussed up from sleep, only one shoe on, the other held in her hand. Her clothing didn't match and looking down, yes he noted, she was wearing two different socks.
"Hermione, my dear, we have plenty of time. Try to relax. You don't want to make yourself sick." And with that, her father turned back to his paper, hiding his smile as Hermione let out a cry of frustration. Behind him, the kitchen door swung open and his wife stepped though. There was an enormous crash as she dropped whatever she had been holding.
"Hermione, what are you wearing?" she asked frostily. "You don't actually think you are leaving this house looking like that, do you? You look like some unkempt, homeless vagabond. No daughter of mine would ever dress like that. This kind of behavior is absolutely shameful and unacceptable. It makes me reconsider if I should actually let you go to that school." She spit the word school out like it was a dirty word. "After all, what are you going to do with this magic? I doubt you could do it anyway. Just look at the way you do everything else. You can't even dress properly and you're eleven years old." She sniffed haughtily and looked down her nose at her daughter.
"Jane…"He started in a warning tone. Robert Granger could take only so much from his wife. Glancing over at his daughter he saw tears running down her red cheeks, all of her previous glee vanished. Looking up at her mother, she slowly turned and walked back up the stairs to her room where she quietly shut the door. "Jane, why do you insist on doing this to her? She's your daughter, not a slave you can just order around. You always take away her happiness. Can't you just see that all she wants to do is please you? And all you ever do is belittle her." He turned toward his wife, anger evident on his face. Shocked she took a step back from him.
"Robert, I-", she tried to cut in but stopped short at the look on her husband's face. Jane did know what she did to Hermione. It wasn't entirely on purpose. After all, she didn't want to hate her daughter. But Hermione had what she had never had, would never had. And she was jealous, oh was she jealous. That jealousy manifested itself in a burning rage and so she lashed out at Hermione. Never at Robert though. She loved her husband more than anything in the world. If she lost him, she would probably die. But looking at his face now, Jane knew she had gone too far. She tried to backpedal, make amends. "I-I-I'm sorry Robert. I didn't mean to lash out. It's just been one of those mornings. Please, forgive me." She drew closer to him to take him in an embrace but he shrugged her off.
"It's not me you need to apologize to, it's Hermione. This has gotten worse than ever since she got her Hogwarts letter." Seeing the pain on his wife's face at the mention of the letter, he took her face into his hands. She tried to turn away from him but he brought her face back to him. He was more than surprise to see tears glistening in her eyes. "Oh, Jane, my love, what am I to do with you. One second you're hot and the next you're cold. I know my dear, that you didn't marry me for my brains, but even I know when you're trying to hide something from me. What is it that you don't want me to know?"
Pulling away from him, Jane brushed the tears from her eyes. "It's nothing, dear, nothing. I don't want to concern you with it. Just ghosts from my past coming back to haunt me." She managed a weak smile. "I'll go apologize to Hermione and then we'll go. Hmm?" Without waiting for his answer, she turned and walked up the stairs to Hermione's room.
Staring at his wife's back as she walked up the stairs, Robert knew more was going on and he knew it was probably something he needed to know. But he knew his wife would never give the information up unless she wanted to. His mysterious, lovely Jane. Upstairs, he heard the murmur of quiet voices and it wasn't long before Hermione came bounding down the stairs again, her excitement restored. Her mother followed her, a small, sad smile on her face. Robert shook his head, determined to figure out the story later. Looking down at his smiling daughter's face, he couldn't help but smile. He did notice though that Hermione had changed her clothes and now looked exceedingly prim and proper. Grabbing her small hand in his much larger one, the family left the house together for King's Cross and a completely different world.
A/N: So what do you guys think? It's a bit longer than the last few chapters. And what is Mrs. Granger's secret, hm? Tell me your thoughts and I might tell you if you're right! I just want to thank everyone for reading. This is a whole new experience for me and I'm finding it a bit harder than I had hoped! I know it's been a lot longer than I said it would be to a new update but I've been crazy busy with college applications(!) so now that I'm on break I'll probably be able to update more. As always, I'm open to any suggestions you might have and it would be lovely if anyone wanted to beta for me.