TW: A trans character is misgendered by Malfoy. It's the second Hermione POV scene in the library. I'll add a TL;DR next chap for those who wish to skip it.
"So the ninth goblin rebellion happened during abolition?" Pansy said, jotting it down.
"No," Hermione restrained from rolling her eyes. "The Griphook Rebellion-which was the ninth English Goblin Rebellion, was inspired when abolished wizard slaves of African decent unionised, proving Goblins could establish their own communities rather than work and live in wizard owned Ghettos."
"But they still live in their own little bubbles!" Pansy said. "If they think they deserve wizard rights they can just integrate with the rest of society."
"Yes, Pansy," Hermione sighed. "But the communities and businesses are owned by themselves now. They can operate according to their own values rather than being treating like modern serfs. And they still don't have the best deal, you know many wizarding establishments won't serve them, and legally are still barred from certain jobs. Outside of their communities they can't teach, heal, practice law or-"
"So they basically still live in ghettos!" Pansy declared. "Fat lot of good the rebellion did!"
"No," Hermione said. "Things are undoubtedly still unfair to them, but it's infinitely better than the wizard run ghettos. It was perfectly legal for a wizard to saunter up to one, demand service and if they were unpleased, kill them. And they were only allowed to have one child per household before then."
"Like in China?" Pansy shrugged. "Chinese aren't moaning about-"
"It's a human rights violation, Pansy," Hermione set her quill down. "And the Chinese are complaining. Nobody, wizard, muggle, goblin or elf is happy about forced ab-"
"Elves are happy to do whatever their masters tell them," Pansy insisted. "We have three, and they all do whatever we want without complaint. Over summer Weedy cleans my rooms, organises my school stuff and even brushes my hair and dresses me. She not once moaned or whined."
"Weedy?" Hermione scoffed. "You named one of your elves Weedy?"
"She is a bit of a weed, Hermione," she said. "'Oh, please don't punish Weedy! Weedy will do it better next time!'"
"I think I just figured out why we can't be friends," Hermione snapped. "How could you mock someone begging not to be abused? What the actual fuck is wrong with you?"
"Something," Pansy shrugged. "It's not like she's human. She's just a houseelf."
"And you better hope that Weedy doesn't remember her Brownie roots one of these days," Hermione glared. "These are powerful fey creatures not to be trifled with and I personally can't wait till they remember what they're capable of en masse."
"We can't be friends because you're a self-righteous, buck-toothed, frizzy-haired, know-it-all, stray bitch!" Pansy seethed. "I don't know what's more disgusting, your appearance or your personality."
Do you think I've never seen my reflection before, bitch? Hermione thought wishing comments about her, admittedly poor, appearance didn't cut as deep as it did. Though echoing her father's words about her personality-self-righteous know-it-all-that stung in special ways that made Hermione have to force herself not to cry. She dug her nails into her clasped hands until she felt blood and steadied her breathing.
"I may disgust you," Hermione forced a cold laugh. "You are certainly not the only one who can't stand me. Were you going to tell me that I'm so terrible that not even my own mother could love me? That I wasn't an hour old before she left me in some cold alleyway? Because I've heard it all. I do wonder if you've ever once had an original thought? You must be trying, I can see the smoke produced from the friction of two underdeveloped braincells attempting to function. I do hope it doesn't result in an aneurysm, though I imagine we'll be better off if it did."
"You bitch!" Pansy cried.
"I know," Hermione shrugged. "Enjoy studying for that test. I hear you'll be off the Gobstones team if you get below a sixty on it. If only you used that puggy little head of yours for something other than to accessorize."
"If you girls don't mind," Madam Pince appeared craning over their table. "This is a library."
"I was just leaving, Madam Pince," Hermione glared at Pansy. "I feel sick, anyway."
"Oh, that's rich!" Pansy hissed.
"Toodle-loo, puppy!" Hermione laughed before turning away feeling a unique mixture of self-satisfaction and horror at her capacity for cruelty that only came to her after prolonged interactions with Pansy Parkinson and Draco Malfoy. She wanted dirt on Malfoy, O'Malley proved useless in collecting dirt, the gangly ginger halfblood stood out in the Slytherin common room, making him a terrible set of eyes for her. Though if Skylar said her dream meant she had an enemy she hadn't consciously processed, it was likely neither of them. She just wished she could figure it out.
Weeks passed by since the dream and she was still nowhere closer to figuring it out. She sighed going over the details again in her mind. Hiro couldn't pose a danger in Japan if he wanted to, but he loved her. He even wrote her haikus. And Hermione didn't want to be the sort of person to suspect her boyfriend. Her friends were all hostages in the dream. Honestly, it played like a fantasy. The only thing out of place was Crookshanks trying to eat Scabbers.
There's something wrong about that rat, how many time had Crookshanks communicated that with her? Could she communicate with other cats? She tried with a corridor stray last year shortly after her transfiguration, but was stopped by her father. Maybe...if something she took for granted was the indicator, she did take Ron for granted, and he told her both in and out of that dream something was wrong with him. He single-mindedly went after Scabbers. Why?
She was reading about Animagi in the dream. Hermione took for granted that it was because she was reading the volume when she fell asleep, but what if it was a clue. Could Crookshanks be an animagus playing the long game? Was it possible? She loved that cat...Couldn't Scabbers be the-no, that was stupid. She had to approach this logically.
Her first instinct was to go back to the library, but her little spat with Pansy meant Madam Pince wouldn't want her to show her face in there for a while. She'd come back tomorrow and get every scrap of paper on animagi. She had planned to anyway, she needed to get an 'O' in her OWLs, if she scraped by with anything less, well, she didn't know what it said about her, but she knew it was bad. She had to be good enough. If she couldn't live up to her own god damn standards, how could she ever live up to anyone else's?
"If I ever find out who wrote that article," Draco Malfoy moaned to his cronies. "'Declined to comment' my arse! Everyone adores you, Potter, they wouldn't if I told everyone how that creature mutilated my arm. Don't you worry though, after my father is done, both that hippogriff and oaf will be done for."
Maybe Severus did have a reason to be happy Dumbledore advanced his daughter two years ahead. She would have rose to Malfoy's bait as Potter was about to.
"If it's not too much to ask of the great Harry Potter," he sighed.
Sniggers filled the classroom and Severus continued once Potter turned his defiant face to him.
"I would ask you pay attention. You had the opportunity to chit-chat before class started. You are distracting those who wish to pay attention and put forth the effort to achieve in this class."
"If you paid attention you'd note Malfoy was the one distracting me, sir," Potter glared.
"And now you're wasting class time," he said. "That'll be ten points from Gryffindor. Five for Potter's cheek and a further five for wasting my time."
Potter rolled his eyes and exchanged a mutinous look with Weasley. No doubt they were going to bitch and moan about how truly awful he was. He wondered if Potter would ever figure out that his cheek served only to irritate him. He also wondered what Hermione saw in those boys. Maybe it was her affinity for strays, there were only a handful of outcast children Hermione hadn't managed to befriend, and that was simply because she hadn't met them all. Though Potter enjoyed a popularity the others she befriended did not. And where Lovegood, Longbottom, Sloan and Delaney displayed a number of deficiencies, they seemed to at least be kind-in Lovegood's case, too kind. O'Malley still reminded him too much of himself for him to be comfortable with Hermione's choice to befriend him, and Potter and Weasley were arrogant, rash, little idiots that were going to get her killed.
But of course Potter was too wrapped up in his own little world to notice, perhaps to even care. Just like his father, he was a bright star and the rest of them merely orbited around him.
"You do know that Siamese crocodiles are critically endangered, yes?" Severus glowered at Weasley.
"Maybe we should use another breed then?" Weasley responded.
"What a wonderful idea, Weasley," he sighed. "And then we can dispense with wand work and incantations for twigs and rhyming couplets, shall we? Now why didn't I think of that?"
Weasley shrank in his seat and grimaced. The boy had just thrown his crocodile heart in Malfoy's face. Not only displaying an astounding amount of immaturity, but also rendering the organ useless. The boy simply had no appreciation for how delicate sympathetic magics were. Though he doubted the little moron appreciated much of anything.
"I'll be taking fifty points from Mr Weasley," he said. "I suggest the rest of you behave like civilised wizards and witches if you don't wish to incur my wrath further."
"I hate Hallowe'en," Severus muttered. "Students get so excited and out of hand. More so than usual."
"He says to a student," Hermione quipped.
"He says to his daughter," Severus corrected placing a hand on her head. "Though Madam Pince says you were quite out of hand yourself during lunch. You told Pansy Parkinson that the world would be better off if she had an aneurysm?"
"I know I shouldn't have," she sighed setting aside her chrysalis pods and clasped her hands. "It was wrong, I-erm-I get...she just-I should probably apologise, shouldn't I?"
"I should say 'yes'," he admitted. "But this is different than when you intervene with Malfoy and Potter, isn't it?"
"Sh-she-erm-" Hermione shook her head. "It probably doesn't matter, sir."
"It does," he said. "I will not condone what you said, and I do expect better from you in the future. However, it pales in comparison to what she said to you. Does she often make comments about your origins?"
"Only in the days where the earth revolves around the sun." Hermione's grip on her hands tightened. "H-how much did she hear?"
"My dear, the whole library heard your little retort," he sat down beside her.
"Oh, god," she braced herself.
"You're not in trouble, Hermione," he said. "This time. Though I am wondering why you hang around her."
"I was helping her study for a test," she explained, looking rather ashamed.
"Why?"
"That's what I do," Hermione sighed with an eyeroll. "If you need help, find Hermione, doesn't matter if-erm-never mind. It-it doesn't matter."
"It doesn't matter if...?" he pressed, placing his hand on her head again.
"This is just what I'm used to," she shrugged. "I-erm-I was once told that I-erm-that I wasn't worth the cabbage you traded for me and I still wound up helping h-them with an essay."
Now I get to play the game of pronoun or name, he thought, repeatedly brushing his hand over her head.
Hermione turned her gaze back down and clasped her hands more tightly together before shifting uncomfortably. She bit her lip as she realised what she said before she scoffed with an eye roll. "I don't know why I-" she shook her head. "It's fine."
"There's that word again," he sighed. "We really do have different definitions of 'fine', don't we?"
"Seems that way," she scoffed.
"Indeed," he brushed her hair out of her face. "Listen to me, Hermione. This is not fine. I don't seem to recall raising you as some shrinking wallflower-"
After what he overheard between Lovegood and Hermione, he was starting to believe he did. Hermione shrank in shame even during moments of tenderness, and he-he didn't know what was wrong with her. He certainly didn't want her to accept mistreatment from her peers, but he wanted her to listen to him. Looking into her doe-like eyes he couldn't help but think about his very first time looking into them. He promised her that he had her, that everything was alright. He remembered her tiny, cold hand wrapped around his finger, clinging to it as if he was all she had. That wasn't the case anymore, and he never prepared her for it.
So concerned with protecting her from the world you never once thought about her place in it...
"I've seen you cause enough trouble," he said. "I'm certain you can think of ways-legitimate ways- to refuse a couple of idiots."
"Yes, sir," she said in a small voice.
That wasn't the response he wanted. He didn't know what he wanted, but the small, detached response wasn't it. Once again he was forced to wonder whether this was a result of her natural demeanour, trauma, the fact that she was a hormonal thirteen-year-old, or how he raised her. Perhaps all of the above?
"So," Hermione started, wringing her hands nervously. "Did you hate it when you were my age too?"
"Idiots?" Severus asked. "Never had a tolerance for them."
"No, Hallowe'en," she corrected. "Did you hate Hallowe'en when you were my age?"
"Well," he mused. "I didn't have a daughter that kept finding herself in danger when I was thirteen. No, most of my reasons for hating the day came later in life."
"Sorry," she said.
"It's not just you, love," he sighed. "Did you not hear what I said about students getting out of hand? Especially your little friends."
"Oh," she rolled her eyes before covering her face. "What did they do? Do I want to know?"
"I'll start with the harmless but annoying, then," he stroked her hair again. "Luna Lovegood showed up to class wearing cat ears and a bell."
"Bet she pulled off the cat look better than I did," Hermione shook her head with an amused smile. "What else?"
"Potter fancies himself a comedian," he said. "Though I don't think his cheek was too different than his usual."
"Actually, cheeky comments are the only way kids my age communicate," she shrugged.
"That explains so much," he smirked pinching her cheek.
"Dad!" she cried rubbing the red mark on her cheek.
"Oh," he smirked. "Am I embarrassing you in front of the chrysalides?"
"That's how you say it?" Hermione slapped her forehead. "I've been saying chrysali since I was five. Now I am embarrassed!"
"Your juvenile delinquents will never know," he ruffled her hair.
"Juvenile delinquents?" Hermione scoffed. "That's a bit harsh for cat ears and cheeky remarks?"
"I didn't get to the part where Weasley saw fit to throw a Siamese crocodile heart at Malfoy's face."
"But Siamese crocodiles are critically endangered," she blinked, covering her mouth. "An-and that means that creature died for nothing..."
"Shockingly not a concern of Weasley's," he sighed.
"I wish I was surprised." Hermione rolled her eyes. "I better finishing sorting the chrysalides. That sounds so wrong."
"You can look it up, love," he smiled.
Hermione worked, examining the markings closely to determine the species before gingerly storing them in the correct containers. It fascinated him, the way she let herself disappear into her work. She was always so careful and precise, ensuring each chrysalis retained its full potency. She understood how delicate sympathetic magic was, and she couldn't let something die in vain. She was truly a remarkable child, his child. His baby.
Is she really dating someone already? he found it hard to believe, she was still so young. He could barely tell the difference between the girl sitting opposite him and the little girl who sat on his shoulders to hang herbs from the ceiling. She was talking to him again, now was as good as any time could be. Just ask her...You should have had this conversation before she got involved with anyone...
"Hermione?"
"Dad?" she blinked. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, love," he said. "I just wanted to ask-"
A knock on the door interrupted him, reminding him that this was one of the days Lupin had to be dosed with Wolfsbane potion. Severus was starting to believe he was cursed. He rose and brushed a hand over Hermione's head with a sigh before opening the door to reveal his he was right.
"Is this a bad time?" asked Lupin.
"I can get the dose quickly," he said. "Come in."
"Actually," Hermione said, standing. "I have some juvenile delinquents to meet at the library."
"You will behave yourself," he sighed. "And we'll speak after the feast, which I will see you at. Yes?"
"Yes, sir," she nodded before rising on her tip toes to kiss his cheek. "See you then, bye, Dad."
"Must she always literally run off?" he asked himself watching her disappear down the corridor.
"Understanding teenagers?" Lupin sighed. "There in lies the way to madness."
"Don't I know it," he shook his head. "She's-" What the hell am I doing? "I'll get your damn potion."
"Thank you, Severus," Lupin leaned against the door. "She's a sweet kid. You never really appreciate how awful we could be until you work with kids."
"Wait until you have one," he ladled the purple solution into the goblet unsure why he was still talking to him. "I don't know what scares me more, her befriending those who remind me of my tormentors or those who remind me of what I was like. Roll the bloody dice, I imagine."
Lupin knit his eyebrows and stared at him. "Can't win, can you?"
"I suppose not," he sighed handing him the potion. "And she's like me in all the wrong ways."
"Clever, funny and insightful?" Lupin asked. "Sounds awful."
"You don't-"
What the hell?! Lupin seemed interested, sincerely concerned as he listened. Lupin had also been a source of-he didn't trust him, and his interest in both him and Hermione made him-uncomfortable. What the hell was Lupin doing? Seeking absolution. Severus believed his guilt was sincere, but he still didn't deserve his forgiveness. And that was before Lupin decided he would try to replace him. It wasn't his fault his only friends were dead or fugitives on the lamb. Severus didn't need the man's friendship, no matter how hard he tried. And if Lupin wanted to fill the role of surrogate, Potter was a good candidate, he could leave Hermione alone. In fact, he already spent ample time with the boy, so why was Lupin bothering with them?
"Stubborn." he rolled his eyes. "I know what you're doing. I told you you would receive no absolution from me. Take your damn potion and leave."
"I forgot suspicious and defensive," he rolled his eyes.
"I am not defensive!" Severus snapped. "Now go!"
"I am not defensive!" Hermione snapped.
"You said that defensively, kitten," Skylar pointed out.
"We just wanted to make sure you were okay, Hermione," Deirdre said. "Harry and Ron were looking for you at the feast. Luna assumed you'd be here."
"This is always the first place I look," Luna explained. "Ran into them on my way here. But we weren't sure where Pince kicked you out earlier. You've just been evasive the past few weeks."
"I've been busy, Luna," Hermione sighed. "I have so much work to do. I'm sorry if you lot feel neglected, but I can't-I can't fail. I was pushed ahead, I'm not ready for the OWLs. You two and O'Malley had years to prepare, I had months."
"Can't you tell the professors you're not ready?" Deirdre asked.
Hermione shook her head with a sigh, but Luna answered for her.
"She can't. She'd disappoint too many, or that's what she tells herself at least."
"L-Luna!" Hermione choked.
"Frankness is the duty of the best friend," Luna said. "Even if I'm not yours."
"L-Luna," Hermione took her hands. "You're one of my closest friends. I care very much about you."
"It's okay, Hermione," Luna smiled. "I'm happy."
"Okay," Deirdre bit her lip. "I had to introduce myself to people I knew for three-and-a-half years and I find this awkward."
"Right there with you," Skylar nodded. "So much for the unofficial Hufflepuff motto."
"What's the motto?" Luna asked.
Deirdre closed her eyes with a serene smile. "I vow to love and tolerate the shit out of you."
"Or it was," Skylar rolled their amber eyes. "Until we realised it was already taken."
"I've since suggested 'harmonious house of Hufflepuff'!" Deirdre smiled. "But Newt and Skylar vetoed it."
"Newt?" Hermione asked.
Deirdre nodded. "My boyfriend, he's a year below us. Though technically a year older than you."
"Your what?" Hermione blinked. "I have been distant. When? Details!"
"A week ago," she said. "And we're private. You haven't exactly been forth coming with details regarding you and Hiro."
"Touche." Hermione sighed.
"Planning on becoming an Animagus?" Luna asked looking through the registry.
"Just an essay," Hermione said it taking back. "Researching the registry process. If you look here-" Hermione nearly burst into laughter covering her mouth.
"What?" Luna asked.
"Lucious Malfoy is a peacock!" Hermione laughed. "A bloody peacock, why am I not surprised. Of course he's albino! And Narcissa, god, I love that name, is an albino fox. All white and pure like a proper bigot should be! Oh, god, I could die! And Narcissa? They should have just named her 'We Hate Our Daughter'!"
"Think my mother's name is funny?" Malfoy spat appearing from behind a bookshelf with Pansy behind him. "Wasn't 'We-Hate-Our-Daughter' the first name your mother suggested? Not that 'Hermione Elizabeth' is much better."
Because a Princess of Sparta and Queen of England who defined an era is so terrible, Hermione thought, though this was the first time she even thought to defend the names her father gave her. They were long and she couldn't pronounce any of them before she was four. She couldn't spell 'Hermione' before she was five. Maybe it was the sneer in his drawling voice or the smug expression on his pasty pointed face that made her leap to defend her father's choices mentally.
"Shouldn't you be stuffing your face with your cronies to protect you?" Hermione sighed, leaning against the table.
"Protect me?" Malfoy sneered. "I'm not the one who needs my daddy to make threats on my behalf."
"That is literally all you do!" Hermione rolled her eyes and laughed coldly. "Every second sentence that leaves your mouth is 'wait until my father hears about this' and-" she blinked in confusion. "My father did what?!"
"Oh, you didn't know, kitten?" he said.
"Shove off, Malfoy!" Harry said, appearing like Malfoy did, suddenly from behind a bookshelf with Ron looming over his shoulder.
"Or you'll do what, Potter?" Malfoy snapped. "Faint at me?"
"That's rich coming from you!" Hermione stalked up to him, and drew herself to her full height. "I heard what happened on the train. Harry might have fainted, but at least he didn't wet himself."
"I did not!" Malfoy denied. "Who told-"
"I didn't say anything to her, Draco," Pansy whispered.
"The Weasley twins," Harry answered. "But at least they were nice enough to say 'nearly'. Reckon they're good blokes like that."
"Though I wouldn't be surprised if you stained your pants," Ron shrugged.
"Or so I hear from credible sources," Hermione sighed. "And I'm not talking about the twins. It's amazing what some people will do for a little bit of help on an essay." I'm pulling this out of my arse. "Several actually."
"Oh, and did a certain self-righteous, insufferable little know-it-all have herself a good sob in class recently?" Malfoy seethed. "It seems both your mother and your father can't stand you."
"Oh come up with some new material, you inbred prat!" Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Unwanted bitch." Pansy seethed.
"May-maybe we should all calm down," Deirdre suggested. "We don't want things to get out of hand."
"I'd listen to him if were you." Malfoy grinned maliciously.
Deirdre broke into sobs, covering her mouth and turning away from them. Luna hugged the much taller and older sobbing girl. Hermione had never seen Deirdre cry before, some part of her thought the sunny, smiling girl was incapable of it. The idiot's cat comparisons were more on point than he thought, as Hermione's blood boiled and she felt like a lioness charged with defending her pride.
"You like looking down from on high, don't you, Draco?" Hermione rose on tiptoes to purr in his ear. "You think you're untouchable from your pedestal. I bet we're all just ants to you."
"Maybe you are," Malfoy sneered before glaring at Deirdre and Skylar. "Mind you, male ants at least know what they are."
"Don't do anything stupid," Skylar advised too late.
"Levi Corpus!" Hermione shrieked, forgetting where she had stumbled across the spell.
"Stop!" Malfoy cried as an unseen force picked him off the floor by his ankle, his robes falling to reveal thin pale legs. "Why are you doing this?!"
"Hermione, stop it!" Pansy begged.
"Still like looking down on us? Are we ants in our rightful place?" Hermione hissed. "Do we 'know what we are'?"
"Please," he sobbed. "I'm begging you."
"Begging?" Hermione asked innocently. "Aren't I just an insufferable little know-it-all? An unwanted bitch? An ant to be sneered down at? A helpless kitten that need her daddy to make threats on my behalf?"
"Hermione!" he whimpered.
"Did you lot hear that?" Hermione laughed coldly. "I have a name now."
Hermione saw the scrawny, pale weeping boy for what he was. Helpless. She made him helpless...and now he was just a sobbing thirteen-year-old boy without a true friend in the world. Hermione exposed him, humiliated him, treated him like...Deirdre is in tears! What about all those times Neville was left crying? Doesn't he deserve...
Hermione set him back on the ground, ensuring she did it gently. She steadied her breathing, if Malfoy saw her in tears the threat wouldn't work. Malfoy landed back on his feet, pale eyes darting from side to side, his face white in terror.
"Run."
Malfoy and Pansy didn't need to be told twice. The two tore off through the stacks and as soon as they were out of eyeshot, Hermione fell to her knees.
"Oh, god," she didn't dare look at her friends as sobs racked her body. "What have I done?"
"That is precisely what I'd like to know, Hermione Elizabeth," said a cold voice standing over her.