Chapter 4 - Revision

The days until Hermione could leave for Hogwarts seemed to drag at first. She was extremely eager to study her actual school books, but Professor McGonagall had been quite explicit that practising spellcasting or potion making at home was 'quite out of the question'. Since that was the obvious next step after memorizing them, she knew that not being able to practice would drive her round the bend, so she decided to save them until the last possible minute.

Instead, she tore her way (metaphorically!) through the other books she'd picked up. After all, there was a lot of background information most of the other students would already know just by virtue of having grown up in wizarding homes. She figured it might well make learning actual magic easier to have that down first.

She'd read Modern Magical History, Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and of course Hogwarts, A History. Then she'd read them again. She tried a third time, but she'd basically memorized them by that point.

And that was the first week.

After a couple of days of making notes on what she'd read and trying to draw some new conclusions, she convinced her mother to take her back to Diagon Alley for more books to fill in obvious gaps in her knowledge. She'd also suggested that there were a few things she'd read about that her mother really ought to buy right away and keep around the house - potions and pre-enchanted items that muggles could still use, even if they couldn't make them, for emergency first-aid and such. She was a little uncertain as to what interactions there might be - if say, heaven-forbid, her parents had a need for a blood-replenishing potion, it might end up confusing doctors after going to the hospital, and if they couldn't tell them what they'd taken… Hermione decided until she could confirm with someone knowledgeable about both magic and muggle medicine - if such a person existed - that such things wouldn't do more harm than good, she'd only recommend ostensibly 'naturopathic' remedies, like Essence of Dittany and the like.

Hermione ended up buying An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe, Hogwarts Houses: Heaven-Sent or Hardly Worth It?, Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland, a copy of the Legislative Guide to the Proper Use of Magic, Practical Household Magic and the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2. She'd selected the latter two to make sure she would have enough materials to work beyond the standard curriculum if she needed to, but firmly placed them with the other school books she was holding off on reading. The rest she read, and re-read, and took notes on.

And that was the second and third week.

Now there were only two weeks left, and though Hermione did understand on some level how smart she was, and took innocent joy in sharing things she'd learned with other people, she'd somehow never developed overconfidence when it came to studying. So with 'so little time' remaining, she was starting to get a bit nervous and finally dove into the actual books her Hogwarts classes had assigned, reading each of them at least three times, to be sure she'd fully memorized every word.

And that was the fourth week.

Having memorized her copy of Magical Theory, Hermione was now quite confident she could control when she tried to do magic and when she didn't. More specifically, that it would be safe to practice spell incantations and wand motions with no actual intent to cast a spell without either running afoul of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, or producing Accidental Magic. But she didn't want to risk associating a mental habit of not intending to cast a spell along with the full motions and wording, so she decided to practice each element separately instead.

In that vein, she broke down the wand movements from all the spells in the Standard books (Grade 1 and 2) as well as Practical Household Magic, and found that there were a great many common elements - swishes, flicks, circles (widdershins and deosil) and so on - that, if mastered, would make it much easier to quickly learn any spell, so she drew up a practice schedule. She also continued on with her juggling and sleight-of-hand exercises, and made a point of practicing the wand motions with either hand.

The incantations were another matter. The vast majority of them seemed to be based on Classical Latin, though the pronunciation often differed from the accepted norms. Given how long magical history seemed to stretch back, Hermione surmised that the magical pronunciation might actually be closer to the genuine original usage, since for muggles Latin was a 'dead language' and the accepted pronunciations had been reconstructed largely through theory, whereas wizards had apparently been using them continuously for at least twenty-five hundred years. Either that, or there was some magical significance to changes in normal pronunciation, but if that was the case, it wasn't discussed in Waffling's introductory text. Hermione made a note to look into it when she had a chance, but for the moment, she sensibly practiced the incantations according to her Hogwarts books and not the ones from her local library.

Finally, the date marked on the ticket Professor McGonagall had given her came. Hermione made sure her parents got her to Kings Cross Station by 8 AM, a good three hours before the Hogwarts Express was scheduled to depart. Partially this was just due to her naturally responsible nature, but part of it was due to a loophole (though Hermione refused to use that term, even in her head, and firmly considered it an 'interesting fact') she had discovered in the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery. Namely that the Hogwarts Express, being wholly owned and operated by the school, was legally considered part of Hogwarts itself, and thus the Decree did not apply to spells cast while on the train. It didn't even have to be in motion. And since the train (and platform nine and three-quarters) was used solely for the purpose of transporting Hogwarts students, it arrived at the station quite early in the morning and simply sat there until the posted departure time. Taken together, that meant an enterprising student might theoretically get in nearly twelve hours (counting travel time) of spellcasting practice, at least ninety minutes of which were likely to be largely uninterrupted.

After Professor McGonagall's thorough explanation, Hermione had accepted that the law was primarily meant to avoid students endangering themselves or others while trained professionals were not conveniently nearby to undo the results of any mishaps. So in that sense, since school faculty usually arrived at Hogwarts well before classes began and thus were typically not present on the Express, casting spells on the train might be considered violating the spirit of the Decree, if not the letter. Hermione wrestled with this ethical dilemma for some time, but eventually decided that since she intended to be very responsible and only practice the simplest and most harmless spells, and even then, there would be upper-year Prefects on the train who could be summoned in an emergency, that it would be irresponsible of her not to take advantage of the very limited window of opportunity she'd found to practice before arriving at the school, and would thus try not to feel too bad about it.

After arriving at King's Cross Station, her parents helped her get her trunks (she'd ended up needing two, to fit all the extra books - magical and muggle - she'd wanted to bring) onto a cart and accompanied her to to the vicinity of platform 10.

"Well," said Hermione's father. "I guess this is where we get off." Her mother was smiling but clearly trying to hold back tears. Hermione had never really been away from home for any length of time, and now she was going to leave for nearly four months, until Christmas break. Hermione suddenly regretted asking to be dropped off early so she could get extra practice. The train ride itself was over eight hours long, she could've spent the extra three hours having breakfast with her parents, watching mum and dad trade sections of the Times, double-checking to make sure she hadn't left any books she'd regret not having.

"You could come onto the platform with me, I'm sure it would be all right," she said.

"No, no...I'll just make a scene," insisted her mother. "I don't want to give the...other parents a worse impression of us than…" she trailed off without finishing the thought. The three stood in awkward silence for a moment. They all knew - Hermione from her extensive reading, the Grangers from various anecdotes in So, Your Daughter's a Witch - that the typical magical attitude towards muggles could be described as, at best, 'condescendingly tolerant'. The young girl suddenly hugged her parents fiercely.

"I love you so much...I miss you already! I'll try to make you proud," she said, her face half-buried between their shoulders as they crouched down to hug her properly.

"Of course you will, sweetheart. You're destined for great things," whispered her father, huskily, his voice slightly muffled by her stubbornly bushy hair. Hermione felt a twinge of alarm, and deja vu. The word 'destiny' floated through her mind, but couldn't find anything to attach to and faded away, taking the alarm with it. They held each other for as long as they could ignore the disruption they were causing in traffic between the platforms, and even a few moments beyond, but the Granger responsibility streak ran deep, and they broke apart.

"I snuck extra brushes and paste into your trunk, enough for an entire term...for all we know they're still using swine bristles and ground oyster shells," said Mr. Granger, trying to lighten the mood.

"I read once of an old toothpaste recipe that included 'dragon's blood'," Mrs. Granger added, smiling tremulously. Hermione laughed nervously with both of them, and did not mention that her book on dragons had in fact noted the creatures' blood had many uses, including cleaning properties, and was mostly non-toxic, so the anecdote was more plausible than it sounded. She took a deep breath.

"Okay. I'm ready. Help me get it going?" Hermione asked. The cart was tricky to start moving, so loaded down as it was. Her parents took hold of the cart's handle on either side of their daughter and pushed until she could guide it alone. Hermione made sure it was aimed properly at the barrier between platforms nine and ten, then turned to wave over her shoulder at them as she pushed until there was a sudden shimmer, then her parents were gone, and she was looking back at wrought-iron archway labeled 'Platform 9 ¾'.

o-o-o

Hermione sunk back into one of the seats of her compartment, relieved. She'd tested a few of the simple spells from Practical Household Magic, and they'd all worked perfectly on her first try (the upholstery in the compartment was now quite fresh, the windows were spotless and the compartment door opened and closed smoothly with nary a sound). In fact, they were easy. Which she supposed was the point...if household spells were difficult, people would just do those things the normal way, wouldn't they?

As it happened, she'd ended up casting her first spell almost immediately after arriving. The platform was quite deserted - if there were to be any porters for the train, they hadn't arrived yet, and Hermione was left to puzzle out how to get her two heavy trunks up the stairs into a car on her own. A quick mental review of the contents of Practical Household Magic suggested a Floating Charm, which was recommended for use when you had weighty things to carry but didn't want to pay the fixed attention to them a Levitation Charm would require. She'd stepped onto the stairs into the car first - so she was technically on the train, as her narrow interpretation of the law required - ran through the incantation and gesture a few times in her mind, and only then went ahead and tried it on her trunks. Sure enough, their weight had been essentially removed, so she could just tug them behind her as if they were half-filled helium balloons, albeit ones that still retained the inertia of fully-loaded trunks.

And the excitement from a properly cast spell was, well...almost addictive. Her memory of producing sparks from her wand - after trying several that did nothing - that first time in Ollivanders felt curiously matter-of-fact, almost dull, as if she'd done it (or seen it done) innumerable times. But this...this was something else, entirely. Sometimes, when she'd been reading a particularly advanced book or working out some tricky bit of math and suddenly understood a concept or realized what the solution was, there was this wonderful feeling, mostly in her head (her mother had said it was probably 'endorphins'). But casting spells, it was like that, only in her head, and her arm, and sometimes her whole body.

Concerned that if she let herself become distracted by continuing to test spells, she'd lose track of time, Hermione elected to change into her school robes now to get it out of the way. She didn't have a particular aversion to changing in front of other girls if she ended up sharing the compartment, but there was nothing to say the compartments would be segregated by gender, so there might well be boys, too. While Hogwarts was a boarding school, so she assumed the other students would be more mature than her previous classmates had been, she hadn't checked the size of the train bathrooms yet, so she decided better to be safe than sorry. Once she'd finished and packed away her muggle clothing, she went back to trying out spells.

Eventually, Hermione began to notice a lot more people though the outside and inside windows. Her stomach fluttered a bit as she imagined meeting other students. She hoped she'd read enough to make a good impression. Maybe things here would be different, since witches and wizards were so rare, everyone would have something in common and make friends naturally and there wouldn't be any issues…

The door to the compartment slid open (still noiselessly) and a girl entered. She was Hermione's age, and also already wearing her Hogwarts robes, though she was quite pretty, with dazzling red hair.

"Are any of these seats taken?" she asked.

"Not yet, feel free," responded Hermione cheerfully. "I'm Hermione Granger," she added.

"Mary Sue Bottomwater, nice to meet you," the girl said, with almost saccharine sweetness. Hermione's reading had prepared her for the sometimes bizarre wizard surnames, but this seemed like a particularly silly example, and she had to make a deliberate effort not to react to it. "Are you a first-year too?" the girl asked.

"Oh, yes. I'm a bit nervous, to be honest, but excited. You?" Mary Sue shrugged at Hermione's question.

"I wouldn't say nervous, but I'm very excited, I can't wait. Usually there's an exam first thing. I suppose you've already finished memorizing all your school books too?" she asked casually. Hermione's smile faltered. There would be an exam as soon as they got there? She hadn't read anything about that…

"I have, but I didn't know there'd be an exam so soon...I should probably do some revision on the way just to be sure," she answered, uncertainly. Mary Sue's eyes widened, and her smile broadened in what Hermione utterly failed to interpret as a 'devilish' way.

"Oh, good!" exclaimed the girl. "We can quiz each other! Me first. What was the trigger for the 1486 Goblin Rebellion?"

"Oh, um...it's believed to be a reaction to Yardley Platt, the notorious Dark Wizard who made a hobby of horrifically murdering goblins. Let's see, what's the second ingredient in a Forgetfulness Potion?" Mary Sue seemed surprised Hermione had answered so quickly, but came back quickly herself.

"Two Valerian sprigs," she answered, correctly. "What syllables are stressed in the Levitation Charm?"

"'Gar' and 'o'," responded Hermione. "What's the Second Principle of Transfiguration?"

"The more similarities two things share to begin with, the less concentration it takes to change one to the other. How can you tell a Devil's Snare from a Flitterbloom?"

The girls went back and forth in this fashion for several minutes, Hermione getting more and more enthusiastic while Mary Sue seemed to become increasingly frustrated and suspicious. Finally, the redhead threw her hands up in exasperation and her voice dropped an octave and lost all pretense at cheerfulness.

"Alright, let's come clean. Obviously you're not a first year - if Charlie told you about my brilliant prank idea even though he swore he wouldn't, I am going to give him a hex he won't soon forget! Unless you are Charlie?" The girl narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"What?" asked Hermione, quite confused by the sudden turn the conversation had taken.

"Oh, come off it. Tell me who you really are, or I'll see for myself," Mary Sue said warningly.

"I already told you, my name's Hermione Granger. What are you talking about? What prank?"

"Have it your way, then," the other girl said grimly, drawing her wand - yellowish, with dark brown rings up the shaft. She pointed it at Hermione, made a complicated half-twist with a figure-eight loop and said, "Homorphus!". Hermione gaped at her and drew her own wand, though she couldn't bring a defensive spell to mind before Mary Sue finished her own. But nothing seemed to happen, other than Mary Sue's expression becoming as confused as Hermione's.

"I know it's technically legal to cast spells on the Hogwarts Express, but I'm fairly certain students casting spells at each other is at the very least frowned upon if not expressly forbidden," said Hermione sternly. "Besides, I don't even know what that spell was supposed to do, and I've read all the way through Grade 2...who are you, then?"

"So...you are a first year? And you've actually memorized all your school books?" the girl asked, ignoring Hermione's question for the moment.

"Yes, of course!" said Hermione, a bit testily. "Is that...not something Hogwarts students normally do?" she asked, somewhat hesitantly. She'd been so relieved when the girl had first mentioned that… Mary Sue meanwhile sat heavily onto one of the compartments' seats and laughed, shaking her head ruefully.

"Serves me right, I guess," she said, seemingly to herself. "Charlie will wet himself when he hears, though I suppose he's actually in Romania by now." She waved her wand over her black Hogwarts robes, which shimmered and became a rather larger set of open brown leather robes, over another blousy set in shades of black and grey. The girl herself shook slightly and grew to fill out the clothes - she looked several years older now - while her face became somewhat less pretty and her hair turned, for some reason, purple. She tucked her wand into a sleeve.

"Name's actually Tonks," she said to Hermione. "Graduated last year, and thought I'd have a spot of fun since I happened to have a free day, and get in some infiltration practice. Some first-years show up thinking they already know everything and it's good to deflate them a bit, whereas others can use a good scare to break the tension, and maybe a few kindly tips for any who are already scared to death and need a little lift. When you claimed you'd memorized your books, I thought you were just copying me and were the first sort, but I guess you actually do know everything." She grinned. Hermione just stared at her for a moment. If this was the sort of thing Hogwarts graduates thought was a good idea, her hopes about the maturity level of boarding school students seemed rather less likely to be fulfilled. She put her own wand away, with mild reluctance.

"I don't know everything...I've only had five weeks or so to read," she said, a bit defensively. "But you're saying...to scare first-years, you Transfigured yourself, and were pretending to have memorized all your books." Hermione wasn't sure how to feel about that. It seemed a bit far to go for a prank, and besides that, it didn't sound particularly complimentary towards Hermione herself.

"I have a trick for that, actually. And hey," said Tonks, noticing the downturn in Hermione's mood, "don't sweat it. It's nothing to be ashamed of...imagine all the free time you'll have, not needing to study!"

"I suppose…" said Hermione, though she found it difficult to imagine not studying.

"Well, you could always help other people study. That's actually a good tip for someone like you, come to think of it. You know about House points and all that?" Hermione nodded. "Well, the better Professors will give you just as many - if not more - points for helping students in other houses as they do for actually answering questions in class yourself. Just a thought," she finished, offhandedly.

"Were you in Hufflepuff?" asked Hermione.

"Yep. That obvious?"

"Well, your suggestion did seem very Hufflepuff, from what I've read. Though I've also read that the supposed House virtues aren't quite so fundamental as they're made out to be. I've been very curious what House I'll be Sorted into, you see." Tonks laughed again.

"I'm not the most Puffy of 'Puffs, I'll admit. I can't help looking for ways to get around rules, it's a sickness. But you're right, after graduation the Houses don't mean all that much, and even in school they're not that definitive. The virtues are definitely there, though, whether because people were Sorted because they already had 'em or because they know the reputation and think they need to live up to them, like-" she adopted a gruff masculine tone, and her chin briefly grew to heroic proportions, "'Well, I'm in Gryffindor, so I'd better fling myself into danger like a complete prat! Charge!'" Hermione laughed, despite herself.

"They're not all like that...some of 'em are even more devoted pranksters than I am, and it does take true bravery to try to get away with anything while McGonagall is hovering over your House... But there can be cleverness in Hufflepuff, and helpfulness in Gryffindor, new Ravenclaws are constantly hatching devious plans to get into the Restricted Section, and hell, I've even seen bravery from Slytherins on occasion." She paused in thought for a moment.

"I think what it comes down to is, you ought to be in a house that'll help you make the most out of Hogwarts. Either surround you with people you can use as good examples for something you want to bring out in yourself, or at least who you'll be able to just get along with for seven years." Hermione nodded. From that perspective, Slytherin didn't sound much better, but Gryffindor seemed a little less attractive than it had - she had a dim view of pranking from her years in school thus far, however Tonks might rationalize it.

"But...it's up to the Sorting Hat, right?" she asked.

"Well, little secret...the Hat can be negotiated with. You can't fool it, as far as I know, but you can maybe convince it, if you have good reasons. My mum had enough trouble after marrying my dad...I didn't want to get in the middle of any pointless rivalries, so I asked the Hat to keep me out of Slytherin or Gryffindor, and Merlin knows I only study in extreme emergencies - like trying to meet the Auror qualifications - so Ravenclaw was out. I made the best of it...Ravens may get better marks, but a 'Puff will never refuse to help if you ask, and I'll take a study group of four patient 'Puffs over one reluctant Raven any day. Not that you couldn't be a helpful Raven if you wanted. In the end, you decide who you want to be, not which dorm some moldy headgear says you have to sleep in." Tonks grinned, and Hermione nodded thoughtfully.

"Anyway, I'm going to give this one up as a bad job and dash. Can I ask you to keep this whole thing under your hat? Not my finest hour, and all..."

"I suppose, if that's what you want. You actually have been very helpful, and it was good to have someone to quiz against without feeling intimidated. Plus, if you've already graduated, it's not as if you technically broke any school rules, I suppose..." Tonks cackled in delight.

"Thanks, I'll owe you one. Be careful of that word, though…"

"Which?"

"'Technically'. Take it from me...once you start down the dark path of rule-dodgery, forever will it dominate your destiny…" she paraphrased, grinning. "Fortunately for me, Moody thinks it can make for better Aurors." Tonks winked, and Disapparated, and Hermione was left alone again with only an inexplicable foreboding for company.

o-o-o

It wasn't long after that other students - current students, this time - started joining Hermione in the compartment. All first years, as older students didn't seem to want to sit with first-years, nor did many first-years apparently have the courage to try to join a compartment with older children. Hermione found herself sharing a compartment with two twin sisters named Padma and Parvati, and a shy blond girl named Hannah.

A woman with cart came by early on selling sweets, and they'd each bought a couple, the others explaining the unfamiliar products to Hermione. While they snacked, they engaged in innocuous small talk which Hermione nevertheless found interesting, as much of it involved nuances of magical society that she hadn't yet picked up from her reading.

Even if Tonks hadn't meant it maliciously, the experience of her prank had made Hermione accept the premise that her study habits might be considered intimidating by some people, so rather than being entirely forthcoming, she'd decided to just wait and see what other people said. After several hours of chit-chat, it somehow hadn't come up, so she decided to try dropping it in herself, casually.

"So, have any of you read much of your school books yet?"

"A little, just to see" said Parvati, at the same time Padma said, "Some." They looked at each other, and Padma shrugged. "I got caught up in the Potions book, it's interesting."

"I thought I ought to wait until a Professor said what to read," said Hannah quietly. All three girls gave her quizzical looks. "Well, you know, some of our books were printed an awfully long time ago...what if the Professors give out corrections? I'd have ended up learning something wrong."

"That's...actually quite a good point," said Hermione, sounding surprised. The concept had never even occurred to her - she was used to getting fairly new textbooks from her school - but thinking about some of the publication dates she'd seen, she had to admit it was worth keeping in mind. Even under this mild praise, Hannah seemed to blossom.

"I do already know some herbology, though, my mum's quite good at it," she offered, smiling. "We've a garden at home, and she sells sometimes to the shops in Diagon Alley. What do your folks do?"

"Mum writes a recipes column for the Daily Prophet," said Parvati, "and dad is a curse-breaker for Gringotts," finished Padma. They looked to Hermione.

"Er, my parents are both dentists." Hannah nodded at this, while the twins looked confused. "People muggles go to when their teeth hurt, to fix them, or to help keep them clean," Hermione elaborated. They began to consider this apparently foreign concept, and Hermione noticed Padma was staring openly at her mouth. "There's a different sort that straighten people's teeth," she added with mild chagrin, lowering her face a bit and closing her lips to hide her front teeth.

There was an awkward silence for a moment, which was broken by a knock on the compartment door. Hermione leapt to her feet to open it, eager for a distraction. There was a round-faced boy outside, his cheeks a little wet.

"Excuse me, I've lost my toad...I just wondered if any of you had seen it?" Padma and Hanna wrinkled their noses, though Parvati looked sympathetic. They all shook their heads, however.

"I'm Parvati...what's your name?" Parvati asked gently.

"Oh, Neville. Neville Longbottom."

"When did you see it last?" asked Hermione. She'd wondered about that bit of the Letter that mentioned bringing animals, and had assumed it was like a witch's familiar. But while owls apparently shared a unique affinity with witches and wizards, displaying unusual (by muggle standards) intelligence and an apparently magical ability to navigate, Hermione hadn't read anything that suggested they (or cats, or toads) established any supernatural connection with the wizard that owned them. This seemed to be more evidence of that, otherwise presumably Neville could've used it to help find his pet.

"About an hour ago. I'd lost him earlier in getting settled on the train, but my gran found him for me," he said glumly.

"How'd she do that?" asked Padma.

"She used a Summoning Charm. But I don't know how to do anything yet, I only just got my wand." Hermione had seen references to the Summoning Charm in her reading, but the spell itself wasn't in any of her actual spellbooks. She supposed that meant it wasn't considered a Practical Household Charm, which was odd, as it seemed likely to be quite useful...maybe it was taught to everyone at Hogwarts, but later on than second year, which didn't bode well for trying to work it out themselves even if Neville did remember the incantation.

"Well, there must be plenty of older students on the train," Hermione said reasonably, "Since this is the last compartment, we'll just go back through in the other direction until we can find one who knows the spell." The boy nodded, looking pathetically grateful. She waved to the other girls and set off down the hallway with Neville in tow.

The first compartment she opened held a pair of boys, with messy and red hair respectively. The redhead was brandishing his wand, which made Hermione think it was at least worth asking, though she guessed they were also first-years, based on their size.

"Excuse me, do either of you know how to do a Summoning Charm? Neville's lost his toad," explained Hermione.

"Uh, no," said the redhead. "Think it goes 'achio' or something, mum does it all the time at home."

"All right, thanks. Sorry to interrupt. Were you about to practice a spell?" she asked with some enthusiasm, trying to be polite.

"Yeah…" He cleared his throat elaborately.

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow; Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow," he intoned, waving his wand imprecisely at the apparently sleeping - and unwell, if the condition of his fur was any indication - rat on his lap. Nothing happened, which did not surprise Hermione at all.

"You didn't get taught that spell by a girl named Mary Sue by any chance, did you?" she asked tentatively.

"What?" asked the redhead. "No. My brother, George. Probably wrong on purpose, he and Fred think they're Merlin reborn when it comes to pranking," he said, a bit glumly. Hermione narrowed her eyes.

"Are they in Gryffindor?" she asked. The boy nodded. Hermione sniffed sharply, then turned to Neville and said, "Sorry, just one second." She drew her wand, pointed it at the sleeping rat and said, "Colovaria!" The rat's fur obligingly turned bright yellow, and all the boys' mouths dropped open. "Just act perfectly normal," Hermione suggested, "when your brother sees him, he'll be trying to figure out how you got his silly made-up spell to actually work." She nodded in satisfaction, then turned to continue down the hallway. Neville shrugged helplessly, then followed.

"Who was that?", she heard the other boy ask from behind her as she walked, followed by the voice of the redhead, who said, "No clue, mate, but she's bloody brilliant - George'll go mental!" Hermione felt a bit guilty that what she'd done and suggested itself might count as a prank, but decided that there must be some pranking equivalent to the legal theory of justifiable self-defence, and let the warm glow of the offhanded compliment propel her onwards.

In short order, they managed to find a fifth year who had no problem (after Neville informed him the toad was named Trevor) Summoning him, to Neville's sincere gratitude. Hermione left Neville in his compartment with an admonition to keep a closer eye on Trevor, then made her way back towards her own compartment. Along the way, she had to press herself firmly against one wall to avoid being trampled by a trio of boys who pushed past without even acknowledging her, one of them whinging about probably having been poisoned by a diseased yellow rat. She decided this was probably not a coincidence, so she poked her head into the redhead's compartment.

"What happened?" she asked, observing their sweets had been scattered around a bit. "I was nearly bowled over by some boys running down the corridor - they, uh, seem to think your rat may be diseased." The two boys rolled back into their seats with laughter.

"Bloody perfect," said the redhead, wiping away a tear and lifting the rat up by his tail to examine him. "Seems like he's all right - just sleeping again, if you can believe it. Anyway, what was all that about, sounded like Malfoy'd already met you?" he asked the messy-haired boy. The other boy described a brief but unpleasant interaction with someone Hermione rather wished Tonks'd had the opportunity to 'deflate'.

"Yeah, my dad's told me about that lot. Came running back after You-Know-Who vanished, claimed they were bewitched, but my dad thinks it's bol-" he glanced at Hermione, "er, rubbish. Anyway," he said, turning to Hermione, "that's two I owe you, if Malfoy's mate thinks Scabbers' given him Yellow Fever or some such. I'm Ron Weasley, this here's Harry Potter."

"Hermione Granger," she offered. "And you're welcome." She paused for a moment, then asked Harry, "The Harry Potter?" He nodded, a bit uncomfortably. "Goodness...you're in several of the books I got for extra reading, but it never occurred to me you'd be here at all, much less in my year. I really ought to have done the math."

"I'm...in books?" he asked, somewhat taken aback.

"Yes, but it's all very complimentary," Hermione said, trying to reassure him. She couldn't imagine what that felt like, and thought it a bit odd as well that he seemed not to know about it, since he'd had ten or so years to learn to cope. But then the books really said nothing at all about what had happened to the baby after somehow impossibly saving Britain - and arguably the world - by virtue of being mysteriously invincible. Clearly there was more to his story, but she couldn't think of a casual way to ask, and there wasn't really time anyway. "Anyway, you two ought to change, the train's slowing so we must be quite close. I'll see you at the Sorting," she said, then left to return to her own compartment, closing the door behind her.

o-o-o-o-o

A/N: So, I had this brilliant plan wherein Hermione would meet seventh-year Tonks, and she'd become her mentor through first year and there'd be hi-jinx aplenty. Halfway through writing, I did my belated due diligence and discovered Tonks graduated the year before Hermione started.

Awkward, but I'll work that out. In any case, I decided to leave it in as just a cameo, with a little tweaking. Someday (possibly when I get an editor) I'll learn how to throw away something I've written, but for now, you'll have to pry my little fantasies out of my cold, dead hard drive.