I'd like to give a shout-out to the sadly unfinished "Something There" by "angel of moozik" for the basic idea of this story, though I've taken it in a very different direction. Hermione's characterization in this piece is also indebted to "There's a Crown, Covered in Glitter and Gold" by MissELY.
Thank you to WithJustaBite and TallulahEuphemia for beta-reading Chapters 1 & 2!
Trigger warnings:
Canon-typical violence, torture (Cruciatus Curse usage), child abuse (referenced; i.e., retellings of canon Dursley incidents)
Shipping notes:
Harry/Hermione; Remus/Sirius (pre-existing); Susan/Neville (slow burn). No Ron bashing and just a bit of posthumous Dumbledore bashing. Susan will be OOC, but IMO this Susan is more like someone raised by Amelia Bones than the Susan from the books.
AU Notes:
I apologise for the extensive notes, but there are a lot of changes from canon that you should be aware of.
For reasons that are, as yet, unknown, Hermione and other muggle-borns of her age from canon are never discovered to be magical and thus never come to Hogwarts.
O.W.L. tests are more important than in canon and are treated as the wizarding equivalent of getting one's citizenship. If you can't pass at least four by your eighteenth birthday, you're considered a danger to everyone around you (as well as the Statute of Secrecy), and your wand is snapped along with your magic being bound. I'm pretty sure I first saw this in a story by the inimitable Keira Marcos, but I'm not positive. W.O.M.B.A.T.s do not exist in this story because they're not in the books and I think they're kind of pointless.
Voldemort only managed to create a single horcrux (the Diary), and that only by accident. He never succeeded in recreating the incident but came closest with Harry, who was left with a nasty dark curse scar.
After graduation, Harry becomes a professional Quidditch player, but after spending five years at it, he feels like he's just making money for the Pureblood elites who despise him. So he quits and signs up to become an Auror.
It's now Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004. Harry has finished his trainee year and is starting to do field work under the supervision of more senior Aurors. He hates being given missions that take advantage of his fame as a Quidditch player or the Boy-Who-Lived, but he sometimes forgets that he has other unique skills. Unfortunately for the paperwork he's trying to finish, a reminder of those skills is currently on its way in dragonhide boots, a fashionable (for the 1990s) muggle pantsuit, and a bad mood from the terrible coffee in the break room…
Chapter 1: Esoteric Interests
Harry stared at the three different forms on his desk and tried to remember which one he needed for the unauthorized enchantment of a muggle artifact, which one he needed for the unauthorized use of a muggle artifact on a kneazle, and which one he could use to have himself obliviated so he wouldn't have to remember what the kneazle did to the dumb bastard who tried to–
"Hey, Rookie!"
"Ack!" Harry didn't even realise he'd jumped at the interruption until gravity shoved his rear end back into his wooden chair with a painful thump. "Damn it, Sue. You could have knocked."
The woman leaning in his doorway nodded. "You're right. I could have."
He sighed. "To what do I owe the honour of your visit?"
Sue affected a pout. "I couldn't just be coming by to invite one of my oldest friends to lunch?"
"You could be…" Harry drummed his fingers atop his desk, "but you're not. You always call me 'Harry' when it's a social visit and it's only ten o'clock. You never plan more than an hour ahead for lunch. Also, instead of wearing your usual Auror robe, you look like you walked out of an early episode of Absolutely Fabulous in that pantsuit."
"Ugh." Sue looked down at herself. "Is it that out of date? Auntie had it in her closet and I resized it to fit."
"I'm afraid so." The red suit didn't clash with her dragonhide boots and set off her long plait of dirty blonde hair nicely, but the effect was spoiled by the hilariously out-of-date shoulder pads.
"I hope you're still willing to be seen with me," Sue said. "An assignment on the muggle side came in this morning and I figured you were as close as we had to a muggle-raised Auror, so I volunteered us both."
"Thanks," Harry said drily. "What're we up against?"
"Your worst nightmare," Sue replied in a theatrically ominous tone. "Studying. Come on. I'll brief you en route."
Harry rose from his chair, resisting the temptation to rub his still-sore derriere, and doffed his Auror robe. He still wasn't used to seeing it without the yellow stripe on each arm designating him as a trainee. Underneath, he was wearing the muggle designer slacks and dress shirt he favoured over more traditional wizarding clothes (Dudley could shove his hand-me-downs into his own pie hole; after his previous career, Harry had the money and desire to never wear such things again). "Sure. Where are we headed?"
"Some place called Camden Market. You wouldn't know how to get there, would you?"
"The Number 24 to Hampstead. We can pick it up just outside Whitehall up top, and it takes about half an hour."
She raised an eyebrow. It was not a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. It was the eyebrow of a woman who had a limited amount of grooming time each day and chose to spend it on her two and a half feet of carefully plaited hair, instead. Besides, as she'd once told Harry, Neville, and Ron, she was so unused to men actually looking her in the eyes that she didn't think eyebrow plucking was worth the effort. Harry and Neville had the decency to blush at that, but Ron had just shrugged and said, "You have eyes?"
They made him buy the next two rounds of drinks for that comment.
"So," she said as they walked, "how do you know offhand how to get from Whitehall to Camden Market?"
"That's where I took Dawlish last month," Harry explained.
"Oh, you mean when he said the Wizarding food he liked was far spicier and more flavorful than anything a muggle could come up with, so you took him up there and brought back a couple of take-home boxes with Heating Charms on them to test?"
"That's the place," Harry said. "I took him to my favourite Thai food stall. It's really authentic, and I told them to make it like they'd make it for their grandmother."
"Grandmothers eat food hot enough to make you cry?" Susan asked as she pressed the elevator button that would take them back to the atrium.
Harry grinned. "They do in Thailand. I'd be a lightweight there, and remember I'm the one who finished that meal."
"As opposed to the one who spent the rest of the afternoon on the toilet," Sue grinned back. "Yes, I think we all remember. I don't think anyone still thought you were too soft to be an Auror after that."
"Mission accomplished." The door dinged open to the Atrium. "I can be Slytherin, too, you know." He stood aside to allow her to leave the elevator first.
"Your secret affinity for the snakes is safe with me," Sue said.
Harry suppressed a flashback to his Second Year at Hogwarts and changed the subject. "So, you never did say why we were heading to the market." He did his best to ignore the gaudy monstrosity of a statue in the Atrium as they passed it.
"Oh, right," Sue said. "The DMLE's Office of Statute Protection reported unusual activity in purchasing borderline goods there, and they want us to investigate."
"Borderline goods?" Harry asked.
"Anything that would violate the Statute of Secrecy was either destroyed by the magic that created it or confiscated by magicals," Sue said. "However, some things slipped through the cracks. Individually, they wouldn't be a threat to the Statute, but they contain enough information that, in combination, they could be risky. The OSP tries to keep an eye out for anyone who seems to be accumulating these goods. If it's a muggle, they'll handle them, but if there's a chance it's a magical, they leave it to us."
They paused for a moment while Harry and Sue Notice-Me-Not'd each others' wands before heading into muggle London (full charms that would work on magicals didn't play well with the wand cores, but minor charms that would work on muggles were fine). Once streetside, he showed her how to board the bus and fake tapping an Oyster card to the reader while he Confundus'd the driver .
"I see," Harry said once they'd safely sat down on the bus and cast charms to dissuade eavesdroppers and other troublemakers. "So we need to make sure this isn't a plot to undermine the Statute?"
"Exactly," Sue said. "Nine times out of ten, it's some old codger collecting rare books. The tenth, it's a Dark Wizard who will try to murder you within five minutes of seeing you."
"Lovely," Harry said. "So, what's our plan?"
"It's a stall in an open-air market," Sue said. "If it's a Dark Wizard, we'll need to bring them down fast or the Obliviators will have their work cut out for them."
"And that's assuming the wizard doesn't have backup," Harry said. "Tell you what: I'm better at muggle interactions, so I'll take the lead dealing with the shopkeep. You cover my back and keep other muggles away. Do you have a list of the books you're watching for?"
She nodded and pulled out a small piece of parchment. "Can you memorise these?"
"Four titles? I think so." Harry spent most of the next half-hour reading the list while Susan took in the sights of muggle London and occasionally asked a question about things like the traffic ("People pay a congestion fee to be stuck in this mess?"), video billboards ("That huge screen is wasted on advertisements?"), and tour groups ("Why do they all have matching umbrellas?"). So a fairly normal afternoon with Sue, but for the looming potential for violence. Which, now that he thought about it, was also fairly normal.
Do not cross Susan Bones.
She was just stuffing the last bite of a sandwich into her mouth (lunch breaks being for people who weren't stuck running a stall by themselves) when the legend himself strode into the stall. She'd heard the rumors, of course, about a weekly visitor to Allison's fuzzy sock stall with the body of a professional athlete, the fashion sense of a male model, and messy, just-out-of-bed hair that made every straight woman and gay man in the entire market want to see what it looked like before he got out of bed, but she'd never believed them. And now, with her mouth full of ham sandwich, she was paying for her lack of faith in Socks Guy.
"Good afternoon, Miss," he said. He seemed to be holding something behind his hip, so she couldn't tell what it–wait… Was that a piece of wood in his right hand?
"Oh," he continued, "I'm sorry." He held up his left hand in a placating gesture. "I didn't see you were eating. A stupefying mistake on my part, to be sure."
She was far too busy chewing, covering her mouth with one hand, and waving with her other to ponder why he'd emphasised that word. "No, no, it's quite alright," she said as soon as she possibly could. "You caught me just finishing lunch. Can I help you with something?"
"I hope you can," he said with a smile. God, why hadn't they mentioned his eyes? Someone should have warned her about his eyes. "I've been looking all over for a copy of Spinoza's Tractutus Theologico-Magicus. Do you have one, by any chance?"
Her jaw dropped. "I…it just so happens I do."
"You seem surprised I'm interested." His tone was playful, but there was an unpleasant undercurrent to it. She was starting to suspect the legend of Socks Guy elided a lot of important information.
"Oh, no, I didn't mean, I mean, you're, I'll…" She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to imply you wouldn't be interested, but it's such an obscure book. Mr. Folkes, this stall's owner, didn't believe me when I said it was an incredibly important text and he thought I just wanted it for my own research, but he said he'd stock it anyway and now I can show him it sold and maybe he'll buy even more just like it. So, thank you," she ended lamely.
Socks Guy's eyebrows shot up. "I have some…esoteric interests. Did you say you're researching it?"
She blushed. An attractive person asking you about your research was pretty much a postgraduate student's dream come true. Even if he was just doing it to be polite, she'd take it. "Yes, I am. I'm working part-time on my dissertation in British History at University College London, with a focus on pre-modern British culture. Mr. Folkes occasionally lets me pick out a rare book I need and take notes from it before he puts it up for sale."
"I'm glad you've found such a cooperative employer," Socks Guy said. "Was it he that helped you acquire an unexpurgated copy of Malebranche's Dialogues on Metaphysics?"
"Yes!" she said. "And Pascal's Pensees Magicque, and Conway's Principia Alchemica. Are you interested in those, too?"
He smiled, but it didn't seem to quite reach his gorgeous eyes. "Indeed I am. Those books are all pretty arcane, though. How will they help you with your research?"
"That's a long story." She'd learnt the hard way that just because people asked her for more details about her research didn't mean they were interested in those details.
"I have the first half of the afternoon off," he said, "and it's so rare that I find someone with…similar interests. Tell me more, please."
There was something predatory in the way he looked at her just then, as if he would hunt her down if she ran away, but it wasn't like her dissertation topic was secret…or even worth stealing, according to her advisor. And how could she refuse those eyes anything?
"I've been begging Mr. Folkes to collect books like this as much for what they cite as what they say, to be honest," she said. "My thesis is that an entire field of European philosophy has somehow been lost, with only a few books left on its fringes to map out what disappeared. It's like if Atlantis had been a real place and, after it sank, you tried to draw a map based on a few customs outposts that survived. These books cite others like them and discuss huge theoretical concepts as if others had fleshed them out fully. By building a web of citations and concepts discussed, my own 'concordance,' if you will, I'm trying to figure out what the missing field covered."
"That's fascinating." He leaned in and placed both hands on the counter in front of her. His right hand was empty, making her doubt it had ever held a stick. And why would he have a stick? That was just weird. "And these books are helping you map the blank space you think you've found?"
"Yes, exactly," she said. "I'm sorry, you must think me mad."
"Not at all," he replied easily. "I'm actually fascinated. My interest in those works was shallow in comparison to what you're describing."
"What is your interest, if you don't mind me asking? I've met so few people who've even heard of them, much less actually wish to read them. Oh, and how did you find out we had them?"
He smiled more easily this time. "I always ask brokers and auctioneers about them, and eventually the trail of information led me here. As for why I'm interested, that sort of philosophy has intrigued me since I was eleven years old. The world is so much more interesting than I'd ever realised, and I want to learn more about it."
"Isn't it, though?" She had to suppress a smile at the thought of a tiny, eleven-year-old Socks Guy with adorably messy hair asking for rare philosophical tomes at his school library. "I love learning, and the idea that there might be a whole other school of thought out there to rediscover fascinates me. Even if my own research is only ever able to limn it, I can still hope that I've pointed others in the right direction."
"I'm sorry, 'limn'?" he said.
She blushed and cursed her postgraduate student training. "Oh, I'm sorry. I fall into jargon sometimes. I meant 'define the boundaries of' or something to that effect."
"It's quite alright." He shot her a lopsided grin that made her insides melt just a bit. "To say I wasn't the most attentive student back in school would probably win you an 'understatement' award from my old professors. I have a lot of catching up to do on learning."
"Then these books will be a great place to start." She unlocked a cabinet with some of the more high-value items in the stall and pulled the four volumes out. "It's especially interesting to read Malebranche and Spinoza together, since they overlap in some ways but are fundamentally opposed in others. These together will come out to four hundred sixty-seven pounds, but I think Mr. Folkes would be so happy to have actually managed to sell these that he wouldn't mind if I let them go for four hundred pounds even."
"That's very nice of you." Socks Guy pulled out a gold credit card with a number, but no name of an issuing bank. "Please put the purchase on this."
"A gold card?" She didn't see those on such young men often, but his clothes certainly spoke of money.
"My bank only issues gold cards." He smiled as if at a private joke. "It's sort of their thing."
"I see." She ran the card with no trouble and put the books in individual paper bags, then put them all in a larger plastic bag for him. "I hope you enjoy them. It's been a pleasure talking with someone else so interested in this field." She did her best to shoot him a grin of her own. "It gives me hope that someone will one day read my dissertation."
"I'd like that." He returned her grin and melted the rest of her insides. "In fact, I haven't had an opportunity to discuss this sort of thing with anyone since I left school. Would you like to have lunch sometime? There's a wonderful Thai stall in the food market if you haven't tried it. My treat."
"I'd…I'd love to, thank you." Inwardly, she cursed herself for seeming as eager as, well, she was, but that damage was done now. "Would noon on Friday be OK? Mr. Folkes doesn't mind as much if I shut the stall during lunch on Fridays because foot traffic in this section is almost non-existent at that time."
"Friday noon would be perfect. I'll see you then." He turned to leave and stopped suddenly. "Don't I feel silly? I haven't even asked your name." He held out his hand. "I'm Harry, Harry Potter."
She stopped trying to fight the stupid smile spreading across her face and shook his hand. "It's lovely to meet you, Harry. I'm Hermione Granger."
Bonus Material:
In case anyone's curious, here's a quick summary of Harry's time at Hogwarts in this A.U.
Year 1 went pretty much the same without Hermione, except with Neville as the target of Ron's bullying and the troll. Harry, Ron, and Neville become inseparable friends.
Year 2 went similarly. Lucius realised that he had the opportunity to either put Voldemort in his debt or get rid of him entirely by giving Ginny the diary. Only half-bloods are attacked, since there are no muggle-born students present, and there are fewer attacks in total. Since Lockhart didn't know what was in the Chamber, he went with them and died. That gave Harry and Ron enough warning to close their eyes and run. Tom tried to stop them, but only succeeded in trapping Harry, at which point things returned to canon. Harry's killing of the horcrux fulfilled the prophecy.
Year 3 went similarly, with one major exception: the perma-death of Voldy means that Snape no longer needs protection, so he moves to an isolated house on the North York Moors with the goal of never seeing another child again. Andromeda Tonks takes over as Potions Mistress, and Pettigrew is captured without Snape there to bollocks things up. Sirius ends the year a free man and takes custody of Harry. Over the course of this year, Susan Bones gradually joins Harry's group of friends.
Year 4 goes surprisingly similarly to canon, since Barty Crouch replaces someone to submit Harry for the Cup and, eventually, bring him to Lucius. Sirius freaks out and arranges tutoring for Harry that ends up keeping him alive. Lucius once again escapes the blame for the event.
Year 5 they have some exchange students from the USA, one of whom is actually possessed by a wendigo and kills Lisa Turpin. Harry, Ron, Neville, and Susan try to stop it and only barely succeed.
Year 6 Moody retires, embarrassed he didn't spot the possession, and Percy Weasley is brought in to teach a new… "less violent" curriculum. It's a massive failure, so Harry starts the DA. Percy and Umbridge (his patron in the Ministry) try to undermine Harry by releasing some Dementors in Hogsmeade during a weekend, but Harry eventually drives them back. Umbridge ensures the retreating Dementors kill Percy, cleaning up the loose end. This incident ends up bringing down the Fudge government.
Year 7 Harry is on edge the whole year waiting for someone to attack him or his classmates. Absolutely nothing happens. His friends still make fun of him for how twitchy he was that year.