AU Note:

I've changed the names of some of the other schools of magic, just for kicks.

Beauxbatons - Académie Lys-des-Cendres ('Lily of/from the Ashes').

Uagadou - Mjiwazamani ('The Old City' in Swahili)

Durmstrang remains Durmstrang.

.

.o0o.

Prologue

.o.

When Hermione Ijeoma Granger was seven years old, a man at the chippy told her Baba to go back to where he came from.

"Mind if we finish eating first?" Her Baba replied. "Bit of a drive back to Southwark, this time of day."

It got ruder and more confusing from there.

Amadi and Joëlle Granger, well used to their daughter's fierce dislike of Not Understanding, sat her down and explained as soon as they got home. Hermione's research into the historical context stretched the conversation out over several weeks.

Years later, she would find herself grateful to them for waiting to tell her about Maman's side of the family— who had, as it turned out, been named Dreyfus until 1937. In France. The historical context for both sides of her family history would probably have been too much for her naïve little child-brain to handle at once.

For over a year afterward, Hermione was too absorbed in her research to care much about her increasing social isolation. What was schoolyard gossip to the grand drama of oppression and resistance?

Her year-mates, of course, neither understood nor appreciated. Thus it was the schoolyard abuse of her treasured copy of Discours sur le colonialisme that sparked her first public magical outburst.

She wasn't allowed to remember this outburst, of course— but one Shabbos in 1987, after a week of worrying about their daughter's sporadic, inexplicable headaches, Amadi and Joëlle noticed the candles burning unusually bright as they sang Shalom Aleichem. Both convinced themselves they'd imagined it.

A month later, after Hermione had returned from school distraught over her ongoing social difficulties, the candles unmistakably flared in time to the fluctuations of her voice.

"Hermione," said Amadi, "keep your eyes open during the next prayer."

Afterward, as she was staring at the candles much the same way she would at anti-colonialist literature that was still a bit above her reading level, he asked: "Did you do that on purpose?"

Her eyes went wide. "Do you think I can?"

"I think," he said slowly, "that we may have been a bit hasty in our assumptions about how you used to get those books off the high shelves."

"I think," said her Maman, "that this calls for further research."

The number of candles in the Granger household soon increased exponentially— and the headaches subsided.

On September 20th, 1990, Minerva McGonagall left chez Granger mildly worried about the sort of shenanigans a fiercely inquisitive child with an innate talent for fire-magic might get up to at Hogwarts, and mildly relieved that the parents had not inquired about the possible magical origins of their daughter's impressive memory. She would never lie to the parents that did ask, but I suppose it's possible felt more disingenuous each time she had to say it. The oddly high number of muggleborns with oddly keen memories was nothing new to her, and neither were her suspicions as to the reasons behind it— but it was not her place to speculate. She was neither a healer nor a mind-mage, and it wasn't as if anyone was being harmed.

After the surprise, awe, and validation of the initial revelation faded, the Grangers were united in their curiosity– but while Hermione filled her notebooks with information about magic itself, Amadi and Joëlle methodically examined history texts and newspapers for everything they could learn about the culture surrounding it.

Sending their socially inept, intellectual black jewish daughter into the British school system had been stressful enough. The idea of sending her off into a hidden society they themselves had no place in grew more daunting every day— and with each piece of literature they dissected.

Wizarding Britain's apparently strong acceptance of Jews seemed to be an exception to its more general tendencies. What the official publications didn't say about recent history was often just as informative as what they did; even the causes of the recent so-called War were talked around more than they were talked about .

This, they agreed, was not a good sign.

By the time they reached the broadsheets from the late 70s (which had to be acquired from Diagon Alley in person, as mailing anything so obviously magical as moving pictures to a muggle address was apparently highly illegal), curiosity had curdled into worry.

They sent a letter to McGonagall, requesting an introduction to muggleborn alumni of her choosing. Three days later, Hermione beat her parents to the door and opened it to find a smartly-dressed white couple smiling politely to either side of a grinning pink-haired punk.

"Wotcher!" Said the punk. "You must be the firebug."

"My name is Hermione Ijeoma Granger," said the firebug— and, forewarned by the Deputy Headmistress: " You must be Nymphadora."

The punk drooped.

Ted Tonks was a warm, easygoing solicitor, who specialized in guiding muggleborns and 'half-bloods' through the legal labyrinths of magical Britain. Andromeda Tonks was a barrister, his partner in both the professional and personal sense, whose intimidatingly posh mien took several minutes to thaw.

Their daughter Nymphadora was… a lot.

Halfway to the sitting room, Hermione yelped, startling her parents. Andromeda let out a long-suffering sigh. Tonks flipped her now shoulder-length mane of Hermione-esque curls –still bright pink– over her shoulder.

"Wow," she said. "Talk about volume. How do you take care of all this?"

"She outsources," said Amadi.

"Baba," Hermione protested.

"What? I cannot take pride in my work? I cannot appreciate my baby's beautiful curls?"

"Baba."

"You should've seen Dora as a sprog," said Ted. "She mirrored just about anyone she could get a good enough look at, to the point where she'd accidentally mix and match all sorts of features. Plenty of interesting hair situations there. She even grew a beard once."

"You could do that as a baby?" Asked Hermione, starry-eyed.

"More that I couldn't not do it, really." Dora shot Mrs. Granger a grateful smile and took the offered couch-space. "Mum wouldn't let me outside without a glamour 'til I was at almost nine."

Hermione gasped. "You're a metamorph!"

"Someone's well-read."

"That," Joëlle said proudly, "is an understatement."

"Yeah? You aiming for Ravenclaw?"

"I'm not sure yet," said Hermione, looking uncomfortable with that. "Most of the books about Hogwarts either read like a historical text or a tourist brochure– they don't paint a very clear picture of the actual student experience."

"Well, that's what I'm here for!"

'Dora', who was set to graduate in June, patiently answered Hermione's carefully curated list of questions, sprinkling in colorful commentary that made Ted chuckle and Andromeda fondly exasperated.

She was surprisingly forthright about the bullying she'd seen, heard about, and intervened against— though the elder Grangers could have done without descriptions of some of her more enthusiastic interventions. They'd have to talk to Hermione about reasonable force.

Joëlle eventually had to confiscate the list so they could have dinner.

Over jollof matzo-ball soup, tarte à l'oignon, and unseasonably fresh fruit brought by the Tonkses, Andromeda talked about careers beyond Hogwarts, from the apprenticeship and ministry recruitment systems to the challenges of making a positive name for oneself without the blood or patronage of one of less than twenty families… which segued neatly into Ted's experiences as a muggleborn.

By the time he finished summarizing, Hermione's excitement had given way to worry.

"So," said Ted, after pausing for water. "As much as I'd like to be flattered by Minerva's recommendation of me as a spokesman, the truth is that all but a few of my surviving peers are a bit too far afield to pop over for dinner."

For a moment, no one spoke. The elder Grangers exchanged a Look. Hermione stared at her plate.

The candle-flames, Tonks noticed, seemed a mite erratic.

"Are you still in contact with those who left?" asked Amadi.

"A few of them," Ted replied.

"Is it better, on the continent? Or is it just… not as bad?"

"That depends on the country. Sometimes the specific province, too. My friends in France make it sound like an egalitarian paradise, which, given how low a bar Britain set for them, I've always taken with a grain of salt— but it is something. Apparently with their blood purists gone, the alpine states have made a national pastime out of smashing glass ceilings."

Amadi frowned. "Gone? I'm sorry— are you saying that Grindelwald's war wiped out blood purists?"

"Well, as a side effect of targeting the aristocracy, yes. There's a reason they call it the Revolution over there. In the countries where it more or less succeeded, at least."

"I assume there's a reason this isn't in any of the literature we've found."

"British literature?" Asked Andromeda.

"Yes."

"The Old Families have a monopoly on the major publishing firms here. Many of them lost extended family and wealth to the continental revolutions. There are still a few Lestranges and Rosiers kicking around who fled France when the guillotine curse came back into vogue."

"Andy," said Ted.

Andromeda paused, frowned, and nodded.

Baba poured Maman more wine.

"I'll send you some books," said Ted. "But to grossly oversimplify, Britain is one of the countries where the blood bigots weren't rooted out, and have dug in like— well."

"Sollidges," Andromeda said dryly.

Judging by Dora's snicker, this was rather rude. Hermione's fingers itched for a pen. "Magic ticks," Dora whispered to her. "Nasty little buggers, nightmare to dig out."

"It could be worse," said Ted. "Durmstrang's admittance policies, for example, or the 'fostering' system in Spain and Italy."

"So the Death Eaters were counterrevolutionary?"

"Are," said Andromeda.

"Right," said Joëlle. "The Imperius Defence. Merde."

"Yes." Andromeda reached for her wine glass and stopped halfway, then closed her hand into a fist and pressed it to the tablecloth. "Much of their early rhetoric was about saving British purebloods from the fate of their continental cousins. The influx of muggleborns from the post-war baby boom aided their cause, in that regard. Scared up support."

Ted took her hand, which seemed to bolster her.

"If you want," she said after a moment, "we can put you in touch with friends in France… and with people who specialize in getting British children into continental schools. What Académie Lys-des-Cendres lacks in prestige, it makes up for in size and diversity— of both students and curriculum."

Joëlle looked at her husband. "French is Hermione's first language…"

"Only by a few months." Amadi's smile was slightly strained. "What do they speak at… what was it? Mjiwazani?"

"Mjiwazamani," Hermione murmured. "Ọ dị n'etiti kọntinent ahụ. Eleghị anya Uganda, mana ikekwe ọwụwa anyanwụ Congo."

"Ah. Not Igbo, then."

"Its catchment area is nearly the size of Europe," said Andromeda. "I'm sure many languages are spoken there; they must offer some sort of accommodations."

"Lys-des-Cendres is at the top of our list of foreign schools," Joëlle replied, "but we know there are a number of other, less famous schools we don't know about…"

Between the revelation that her parents had discussed this without her and the suddenly much more tangible idea of spending most of the year far away from them, Hermione's awareness of the conversation began to drift.

"…expenses before anything else, of course…"

She had imagined going abroad— to see what remained of her Mémé's childhood haunts and meet her cousins in Lagos, at the very least…

But the real-life fairytale Professor McGonagall had spun was being revealed as a pretty facade, and now Baba and Maman were talking about sending her to a country she knew primarily via very bleak stories. Being away from them was suddenly the last thing she wanted.

"There's more to a culture than language," she blurted. "Just look at the Americans. There's— there's connotations a-and unspoken rules and all sorts of things that I would have to catch up on in France, on top of learning magic and magical culture. I may speak French, but I'm British– s-so I should go to a British school. And the bullying Dora talked about isn't nearly as bad as what Ted saw, so that school should be Hogwarts."

Only as she finished speaking did she notice how low the candles had burned.

And that everyone was staring at her.

"…shouldn't it?"

Her parents looked conflicted. Mr. Tonks looked sad. Hermione wasn't sure what to make of Mrs. Tonks' expression (but would, much later, come to recognize it as appraising).

Dora whistled. "Eloquent little sprog, aren't ya?"

Hermione, unused to praise from stylish, pretty teenagers, merely shrugged.

"Well," said Mrs. Tonks, "we've given you a lot to consider. In the meantime, I'd be happy to help bring you up to speed on the local variety of magical culture. For example, did you know that the Trace can't actually tell who cast a spell?"

The elder Grangers were happy to see Hermione's curiosity come roaring back… at least until Andromeda's explanation of how the Trace actually worked (and who it worked for ) sank in.

"That's criminal," said Amadi.

"If only," said Andromeda. "Thankfully it can be easily circumvented without breaking a single law. Incidentally, Hermione– how would you like to see a magical household?"

"Ooh, yeah!" Tonks leaned forward, knocking over a glass with her elbow. "I could show you some spell— ah. Bollocks."

Hermione didn't even seem to notice the wine seeping under her plate. Her eyes were wide, bright with reflected flame.

"That would be brilliant."

One dinner at the Tonks house, complete with a tour of the library and a demonstration of wand-magic, was more than enough for the Grangers to consent to bi-weekly tutoring sessions. Andromeda declined their offers of compensation with a remark about community service that Hermione wasn't really paying attention to on account of Tonks' Freddy Mercury impression.

She must have also missed the part where they mentioned that it wouldn't be solo tutoring— and thus froze one step into the rec room, the sense-memory of years of schoolyard unpleasantness suddenly buzzing through her nerves.

A boy roughly her age sat in one corner, watching in awe as two older girls and a redheaded man built like a rugger circled each other in the middle of the room, trading flashes of colorful light with rapid flicks and twirls of their wands. The spells that didn't hit anything splashed harmlessly against an invisible wall— a dueling ward, Hermione realized—

Dora let out an ear-piercing whistle. The flashing stopped.

"Listen up, maggots! The Emtass has a new recruit!"

"The what?" Asked Hermione.

Dora grinned cheekily, hair growing and darkening to mimic her mother's, as her chin tilted up. "The Mama Tonks Academy for Subversive Sprogs, of course. Everyone, this is Firebug—"

"Nympha—"

"By which I mean Hermione! Ijeoma Granger, candle-lighter extraordinaire and future purveyor of bespoke study-guides."

The redhead gave Hermione a commiserating look.

Tonks introduced him as Charlie Weasley, who was apparently a star athlete of some kind and her best friend. Being from a magical home, he didn't need help avoiding the Trace— he was there to practice dueling with Penny and Beatrice Haywood, a fourth- and seventh-year that lived with their muggle father (and said nothing of their mother).

The spectator, one Patrick Walker, seemed relieved to meet another muggleborn first-year-to-be… at least until Hermione got going about transfiguration theory.

(She saw then that he wasn't interested, that she was alienating yet another peer, but if she stopped there would just be awkward silence and he might even walk away from her so she kept talking in hopes that something about what was honestly fascinating stuff would catch his interest—)

That was when Mrs. Tonks walked in, a stack of books floating smoothly along beside her.

"These," she said, sending two texts towards Hermione and Patrick each with an elegant flick of her wand, "are first-year study guides that Ted, Dora and I cobbled together, and handbooks on wizarding —and witching— etiquette."

For this too, Mrs. Tonks would accept no payment. That was when Hermione realized this wasn't just a favor done for friends— it was activism, which was much cooler.

(Tonks saw Hermione looking at her mum like little Gin Weasley looked at the Holyhead Harpies, hid a smile, and started scheming.)

Hermione knew both her parents had to work twice as hard to get half as far, but their hardships had always seemed like exceptions to the general fairness of English society. Like evidence of G-d's kindness, and proof that books, cleverness, and hard work were the keys to success.

Ted Tonks spoke of a different Britain, where doormen changed the locks to keep people like her out, where books were hoarded by men who thought she was subhuman, and the most successful people were either utter parasites or individuals of supernatural personal prowess.

But it was also a world where people could turn into cats or stags or birds, and heal mortal wounds with a wave of their wands. A world where a twenty-one year old woman from Cokeworth could cripple a fascist insurgency with nothing but cleverness and maternal grit. A world where all one needed to bend reality was knowledge, willpower, and practice.

So practice she did.

By the time Mrs. Tonks escorted the Grangers to Ollivander's, Hermione no longer needed a candle or a song to produce fire.

The tenth wand she touched sent a shock of heat through up her arm and through her body, into her mind. She felt suddenly, profoundly awake— the shop around her seemed brighter, every speck of dust and whorl of wood disconcertingly vivid, the organizational patterns of the shelves laid bare at a glance even if she didn't know what any of the symbols meant, Mr. Ollivander's eyes and fingers seeming to glow…

And then it all began to fade. Soon the heat had waned to a soothing warmth where her hand grasped the pale, polished wood, and she once more stood in a dimly lit, cryptic storehouse of a shop.

"Interesting," rasped Mr. Ollivander. "Very interesting."

He was peering at her over his glasses, unblinking.

"Sir?"

"Cypress & dragon heartstring," he said. "Eleven inches. Whippy."

Hermione forced herself to focus inward, to remember… and grew uneasy.

"Ah." The old man leaned forward on the counter. "You know of this wood?"

She nodded jerkily. "Geraint Ollivander the Second– he wrote that he was always honoured to match a cypress wand, for he knew he was meeting a mage who would die a heroic death."

"Geraint Ollivander –both of them, in fact– lived in a much more brutal age than we. I have found that wands of cypress often choose the brave, bold and self-sacrificing, yes— those who would likely lay down their lives if there were still vikings and such about."

That… made sense.

Yet the knot in her belly remained.

"Those," Ollivander continued, still watching her with those too-big, too-bright eyes, "who possess the courage and curiosity to confront the shadows in their own natures… and in others."

Which, of course, raised more questions than it answered.

Hermione looked down at the wand. It was beautiful, slender and twisting and subtly curved. It fit… almost perfectly in her hand, giving off that steady, soothing warmth, like the hearth during Hanukkah…

Her Baba laid a hand on her shoulder.

"What about the heartstring?" Her Maman asked. "What sort of dragon did it come from?"

"A Swedish short-snout," said Ollivander.

Agile and solitary, Hermione recalled. Highly sought after for the lustre of their hides. The hottest flames, yet the fewest attributed human deaths.

She had no idea what that meant for her, of course, but it seemed important. She barely listened to the rest of her parent's questions or Mr. Ollivander's answers, and followed Mrs. Tonks mechanically back out into the Alley. Thankfully no one seemed to mind— and Hermione was soon distracted by the alien sophistication of real life goblins.

Wand-wielding was… different. All precise and fiddly, at least compared to casting by song. Thankfully the Tonkses let her come over for as many as twelve hours a week; Hermione did as much of her studying as possible at home, so that she could use most of those visits to practice spellwork.

Andromeda routinely lured her away from that practice with supernaturally fresh fruit and sage advice, and taught things like how to use a quill, why quidditch was barmy and how to be diplomatic about it, how to avoid accidentally giving grievous offense to people whose families had the money and influence to ruin your life, and so on.

"If you want to break the rules productively," she once said, "you have to know them first."

"Like jazz!" Tonks yelled across the room.

The Latin lessons began after Andromeda found her cross-referencing incantations with declensions. It was tedious, but the lure of deciphering (and someday maybe even creating!) spells was more than enough motivation. Patrick and a boy named Dean Thomas —who had gotten his letter in June— attended those lessons twice before giving up, and looked at her a bit differently afterwards. Andromeda said that already speaking two languages heavily influenced by Latin gave her a head start.

Tonks taught her hygiene charms, prank spells, how to find the Hogwarts kitchens, the alleged temperaments and habits of the Professors, and what residual marijuana smoke smelled like on clothing— which would, evidently, be important for understanding the behavior of certain upperclassmen.

The Haywood sisters taught her locking and beauty charms, as well as… stricter methods of protecting her property— and her person. Some of which were, technically, still beauty charms. Intent clearly mattered quite a lot when it came to spellcasting.

By August, Hermione had read the entire first year book list twice, could consistently cast more than half of the spells, and had given up on befriending Dean or Patrick. She had apparently been too optimistic in hoping that a subject as fascinating as actual, real-life magic might make other children more appreciative of her swottyness.

It was during this time that she found herself frustrated by the enigma of the Boy Who Lived. Picture-books, in her experience, were supposed to contain less information about important people than serious, grown-up publications— not more. But on the subject of Hadrian James Potter, what little the broadsheets and history books did say was almost entirely baseless speculation, and the picture books were less than useless.

When she asked about this, Mrs. Tonks showed her a scrapbook page filled with news and tabloid cuttings about Lily Marie Evans, later Potter. Mentions of her academic brilliance were outnumbered by insinuations of cheating, proscribed rituals, and 'favors' rendered to her peers and Professors. The engagement announcement transformed her into an icon of either progress or cultural ruin, depending on the source— and only the increasing demands of the War, it seemed, had prevented the DMLE from investigating her for some of the magic she used to defend herself and her loved ones from literal terrorists.

After her death, she was only ever mentioned as the mother of her famous child.

"She sought me out," said Mrs. Tonks. "Winter break of her fourth year. Laid into me for sitting pretty on Uncle Alphie's gold while people like my husband were dying, and demanded I teach her all the things her pureblood peers already knew. So I did— for four years, I watched her learn and innovate like… well. Like very few people I'd ever known. There is no doubt in my mind that when the Dark Lord attacked that night, he walked into her trap. That there was nothing accidental about the magic that defeated him. If she'd been born to magical parents, they'd be calling her the Witch Who Won."

"A liar who will deceive with his tongue," Hermione's mother later said, "will not hesitate to do the same with his pen."

Joëlle and Amadi sat on the Tonkses' patio, watching their daughter pass a tiny globe of light back and forth between herself, Charlie, and the Haywood sisters. They watched the soft smile on her face, and her carefree giggles at the teenagers' banter.

"If only she got along like that with the ones her age…" Joëlle began.

"Yes," said Amadi, "but older students to look after her while she finds her footing…"

"I know," Joëlle sighed. "And at least she's met some of the younger ones already."

"One year, then? See how it goes?"

She nodded, laying her head on his shoulder. "We can always change our minds later."

On August 24th, after Hermione had successfully levitated a teacup without spilling, Mr. Tonks gave her some very vexing advice.

"Pretend… not to know?" She asked. "I don't understand."

"People know the Trace puts you at a disadvantage," he said. "Some of them like it that way. Some of them won't like that it's failed to keep you down. Some might look for other ways to do that. Nothing dramatic, at least not in the current political climate, but the Ministry scrutinizing a muggle family rarely ends well."

Hermione wasn't quite sure how she felt about Ted. Andromeda was helpful, if strict, and Tonks was fun, if annoying— but Ted always seemed to tell her unpleasant, worrying things. The fact that all his advice was sensible only made it less pleasant.

The idea of hiding her knowledge and skill rankled... but the idea of getting her parents or the Tonkses in trouble was worse.

"Just wait until each spell is taught in class," said Ted. "Let them think you're casting everything perfectly on your second or third try, and let them tell themselves whatever they need to to rationalize that. McGonagall will know the truth, and the other teachers will be ecstatic to have a student like you."

Hermione's nose wrinkled. "So I should be good, but not too good?"

"Not forever," he said. "Someday you'll show them all what you can do, but you have to find out what that is first— and that'll take time. Patience. Caution."

His smile was rueful. His eyes were kind.

"Cleverness."

She remembered the things the Prophet had insinuated about him for daring to marry Andromeda and get involved in wizarding law. About Lily Evans, for daring to outscore her pureblood peers.

"I can do cleverness," said Hermione. "And the rest I can work on."

"Well, if you really are as clever as Andy says, I'm sure you'll figure it out in no time."

She blinked, then narrowed her eyes: "That's not a very Hufflepuff conversational tactic."

"It is if I'm obviously teasing."

"Well," she sniffed. "I think you should leave the teasing to Dora, and the manipulative compliments to Mrs. Tonks."

"Oh yeah," he chuckled. "You'll do just fine."