Summary:

In which Hermione Granger is much less Muggleborn than first believed, and does indeed devour books. Quite literally. [creature!hermione] [drabble-series]

Disclaimer:

I don't own Harry Potter, or the cover picture.

Harry was observant, mostly out of necessity from growing up around three extremely volatile presences who could turn violent on him at the slightest provocation.

Also, nobody really paid attention to first-years.

Which, coupled with the fact that most people seemed preoccupied with trying to adjust to a school schedule, and thus, a school morning wake-up, meant that he was the only one to notice how one of the Gryffindor first-year girls was ignoring breakfast entirely.

Her entire being stayed stock-still with a very focused, honed sort of concentration, staring intently at the gigantic tome open in front of her, on top of her empty plate.

This was someone, he thought, who embodied the phrase 'had only eyes for,' a phrase he realized he hadn't truly understood until today.

The speed at which she read was also truly insane; despite the long lines of tiny, scrawled, cramped text, and the pages as tall as probably her entire forearm, she would stare at one page for about five seconds, blink twice, rapidly, and then stare at the opposite page for about five seconds, before blinking rapidly twice again.

After her slim fingers quickly turned a page, almost hungrily, she repeated the entire odd ritual.

Her sheer dedication made him hesitate greatly to interrupt her, but Ron wasn't down yet, and Neville, the only other person (excluding Malfoy) who he'd really spoken to on the train, seemed to be dozing face-down in his bowl of honeyed porridge.

So, reasoning rather nervously that, if nothing else, she was interesting, and perhaps they could talk about some of the books he sometimes read snippets of when hiding from Dudley in library nooks?

At his age, he hadn't had much contact with girls yet, but girls and boys also hadn't begun to distinguish themselves so strictly yet.

Therefore, Harry only felt the normal social anxiety and awkwardness of beginning a conversation with someone who looked thoroughly busy.

"Erm, good morning," he greeted, sliding his plate down the empty benches to settle down directly across from her. "What are you reading? It looks... absorbing."

Not looking up, she muttered a snappy, "Ogleford's Book of Deconstructed Fairy Tales. A bit dry and crunchy, but that nicely complements the slight bitterness and the overall sweet glaze. Not a bad choice for nutrition purposes, keeps the mind healthy."

"Uh, right."

Feeling even more out-of-his-depth, Harry tried for the typical exchange-of-names. "I'm Harry Potter."

She bobbed her head absently, not reacting to his supposedly famous name, still scanning the words like a pigeon searching for crumbs, a stray strand of shiny, thick, and considerably bristling hair.

"What's your name? And why aren't you eating breakfast? Won't you get hungry?" he finally blurted out, unbearably curious.

Finally, she glanced up, tucking the strand of hair behind her left ear, where an earring was briefly revealed in the sweep, something like a small chip of yellow-ish stone marked with black, shaped somewhat in the shape of a fish scale.

He couldn't see it anymore after her hair fell back in place, and hastily averted his gaze before she could catch him looking and think him even ruder than she must already, after his outburst.

"Hermione of the Grange, or just Hermione Granger, if you prefer that. I already ate breakfast. I won't get hungry; rest assured, I'll be eating plenty throughout the day," she said, fast and just as snappy, shaping the words like something precious, her amusement luckily shining through her overall indifferent tone.

For some reason, she also tapped a bony finger on the book pages before her when mentioning eating, like an ingrained habit.

And that was that, wasn't it?

Hermione's form, even drowned in the robes in which she somehow managed to make look moving more or less easy, was entirely bony.

Not starved-skeletal bony, but a sort of general, sharply-outlined joints, thinly-stretched skin boniness.

Her chin and cheekbones were sharply defined, just like everything else, pulling so that her eyes always looked to be widely alert, as if there just wasn't enough skin to spare on covering her flesh and bones as well, making her figure look slim, undeniably efficient, and unmistakably harsh instead of delicate.

Only her hair, in fact, in all it's russet-copper-wiry-tangled glory seemed to have any bluster or heartiness to it, bushing out in curls more suited to a particularly agitated cat, or, no-

Like relaxed spines just waiting and testing the air for a reason to stand up on end in a very offensive defence.

"You've been staring at my hair," Hermione interrupted, not-quite frowning but no longer wearing that small smile from reading. "Is something wrong?"

She placed her hands in her lap and stared at him with the same intense concentration she had given to her book.

(In her lap, under the table, and unseen by all, Hermione's hands clenched at the same time that the ends of her nails lengthened to a spikier point.)

Harry, startled, hastily apologized.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to, um, stare, my imagination sometimes gets carried away with me."

Hermione still didn't relax her not-quite frowning.

He followed his intuition, and tacked on, "I thought your hair made you look somewhat like a cat."

That did the trick.

Her hands returned into visibility, folded neatly on top of her book, which she closed with finality.

"I've always rather liked cats," she said, her small (toothless) smile back. "Would you like to walk to class together, Harry Potter?"

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Reviews:

Shout-out to CatchingSnowflakes, who made an account just to review this story within one. Also, to Loopy Leefy, for reviewing.