A/N: Hope everyone had a lovely week. For me, uni's entering that stretch towards the end of the year where workload picks up with exams in a couple of months. Writing may slow down (not this fic since it's finished), so just a heads up. Enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 12 - Tests & Roles
Harry brushed back a lock of his wavy hair, but not too far back since it would reveal his lightning scar. Though the rest of his classmates at Steadheath Primary School had already seen the scar once or twice, none of them said a word about it. Harry was happy about that—Dudley had targeted the scar for many of his taunts, and that fact not carrying over to a new school was a welcome change.
The unhappy part, however, was that everyone, other than Hermione, gave him a wider berth than the earth gave the sun during its orbit. It was of galactic proportions that Harry's infamous incident with Niall in Hampstead Park spread around the school. The wildfire of gossip caused Harry to become the resident weirdo, the new kid with a penchant for oddities and strangeness, though Harry didn't mind.
Back in Privet Primary School, he'd been the bogeyman, the freak, the victim at the hands of Dudley Dursley and his cronies hanging off his every move as though attached at the hips to the larger boy. At least here in Steadheath, though Harry was mostly isolated, he wasn't relentlessly bullied.
Another added benefit of the Hampstead Park incident, or The Harrowing at Hampstead as the year five class deigned to call it, was Niall steering clear of angering Hermione, too. Now, he sent glares from afar, and if looks could damage, Harry would have a Dudley-sized hole in the back of his head.
After Harry had woken from his exhaustive burst of freakishness that Friday afternoon, Hermione barged into his room and clutched his hand and thanked him so profusely Harry was unsure the girl even knew what she was doing.
Still, the warmth in his chest couldn't be mistaken, and he said, "You're welcome," in an appreciative, if confused, tone.
Hermione explained that, because of what Harry had done at Hampstead Park, Niall would likely stop bullying her for fear of it happening again. And Hermione, ever the smart one she was, proved to be exactly correct. She was, without a doubt, the brightest girl Harry had ever met, and Harry wondered why she, and the Granger parents, bothered with a freak like him.
Harry shook his head, mind returning to the present. Miss Bailey's class. English test. Two weeks after adoption, at the tail end of November. Wind bashing against the windows and rattling the single-paned glass, as though the gusts sought to whisk Harry Potter away so he'd fail his exam.
The words swirled before him, and he pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose—on the Sunday after going shopping for new clothes, Mrs Granger had gotten him a new prescription for glasses, since the Dursleys hadn't bothered with that before.
"You look wonderful," Mrs Granger had said, placing them on his face and stepping back to inspect the new look. Added to Harry's new clothes, casual clothes for homewear as well as a few outfits for when they visited places, Harry almost looked normal. Almost.
And Harry had stared around the living room in wonder, his new vision fascinating. He glanced at the fireplace that seemed far too sharp to be real, as though he was in a higher plane of reality not visible to mere mortals. Mrs Granger's light freckles were clearer, each brown dot accentuating her happiness.
"I can see everything," Harry blurted out in delight, and the smile Mrs Granger sent him made him almost believe he was truly wanted in the Granger household. Almost.
Back to the test, Harry, his mind told him. The present again rushing into focus, Harry tried to get the answers right. He read the passage for the tenth time, though it seemed like the hundredth time. It was from a fantasy novel, the excerpt cited at the bottom, with a character named Arnold finding out that dragons were real, that magic was real, that their entire life was a lie before then. That they were destined for greatness.
And, whilst reading the passage and answering the discursive questions thereafter, Harry knew he would never be like Arnold. He wouldn't have moments of glory, he wouldn't be special beyond words, he wouldn't be destined for something greater than anyone could've planned.
Harry was an abnormal freak, and freaks didn't get the type of lives that those like Arnold led.
"All right, class," Miss Bailey said, shattering Harry's concentration. "Time is up. If everyone can please place your pencils down on the table and close your tests, thank you."
Harry sighed at Miss Bailey's words. He'd done really badly, having been unable to answer the last few questions—and they were the ones with the most marks, too. Given how much he and Hermione read to each other during their evening free time after dinner, he wondered why English felt so hard to dissect.
Maybe the passage knows I'm a freak, Harry thought. And that's why it's not letting me into its secrets.
He shrugged the thoughts from his mind and focussed again on Miss Bailey, who was, as Hermione had told him, a nice teacher. She didn't pick on anyone, had a smile that lit up the entire classroom, and seemed to care about every one of her students.
"Niall, pen down, please," Miss Bailey said, whirling around the classroom like a tornado collecting all the test papers. She collated them at the front, then placed them neatly in a drawer to the side of her desk, whilst Harry sent a glance at Hermione, who sat at another table opposite him.
She sent him a small smile and a thumbs up. Harry nodded, though his gesture was a thumbs down. Hermione's eyebrows knitted at that, but Harry shook his head, hoping the message of "we'll talk about it later" went through.
He and Hermione were getting the knack of non-verbal communication, as Hermione called it. Mr and Mrs Granger did it perfectly, and if Harry could learn a new skill, and a new way for him to talk to Hermione, then all the better.
"All right, class," Miss Bailey said, clapping to get their attention. As usual, Niall and his few friends in one corner of the room spoke for a little too long, prompting a glare from Miss Bailey. Once they stopped, noise sputtering to a halt, Miss Bailey continued.
"There have been some changes to the nativity play. Anisa, who was supposed to be playing Mary, unfortunately cannot anymore due to medical issues that will prevent her from speaking loudly. And so, auditions are open again for a new Mary in the play. Tomorrow lunch time, can all hopefuls please line up outside the west entrance—"
"Which one's the west entrance?" Courtney interrupted in her witch-like cackle.
"The entrance by the side of the main gate," Miss Bailey said. "Once you line up there, Mr Hammond will take you all in for your auditions. Any further questions, 5B?"
Harry spotted Hermione's hand sneak up her shoulder, as if to raise it and ask a question. And then the hand dropped, plummeted as though Hermione Granger, the Hermione Granger, was afraid of asking something.
It was so unlike Hermione that Harry almost did a double-take. Hermione Granger was many things—afraid to seek knowledge was certainly not on that list.
Harry tried to catch her eye, for some more non-verbal communication, but Hermione avoided his gaze like the bubonic plague, which they'd learned about last week in topic class. An ugly disease that wiped out half of Europe's population at the time, horrendous and ghastly, and yet a part of reality.
When Miss Bailey released them for lunch, Harry sidled up to Hermione as quickly as he could, bumping her shoulder with his. They spent every lunch time together, and Harry found out rather fast that Hermione had been telling the truth back at the orphanage—she truly was friendless.
Well, Harry was the same, given Niall's spreading of The Harrowing at Hampstead, so he spent every day with Hermione as much as possible. Other children had gotten to know Harry a little, especially in those classes where Harry was in a different set to Hermione. But if they weren't willing to be Hermione's friend, then they would have to give up Harry's friendship in the process.
That was his rule. Hermione was his first ever friend, his best friend, and he wasn't going to let that up for someone else. Not in a million, gazillion, times a billion years—and that was a very big number, as Mr Hadrian had told him in Maths class.
Crossing the playground revealed a large, dome-like structure on the other side. It looked like what Harry imagined a nuclear reactor to be, metallic with a white top like Mrs Granger's prized kitchen tiles. However, the only reactions occurring therein were chemical reactions—cooking, to be more precise.
In other words, the building was the canteen.
Hermione led him inside, and once they settled down with their fried fish and cake and custard, Harry bumped her shoulder again. She turned to him with a thin smile which looked so much like Mrs Granger that Harry almost got confused for a second.
"You've been wanting to say something ever since we left the class," Hermione said. "You have this look about you—your eyes go really low, and your lips purse. I don't think you even know that you're doing it. But I can tell—when that happens—that you've got a question." She speared a piece of fish and threw it in her mouth. Swallowed, then smiled again, teeth like pearls lined up perfectly, apart from the front two. "So, what is it?"
"When Miss Bailey talked about the audition," Harry started. He knew Hermione was his friend, and wouldn't be angry at him for asking a mere question. But…he couldn't help but worry she would leave him alone, reverting everything back to how it used to be.
Regardless, amongst the howls of laughter from a table adjacent to them, and the smell of fish and chocolate cake floating through the air, Harry pushed on.
"I saw you putting your hand up," Harry said. "And then…it went down again. Did you want to audition, Hermione?"
Hermione glanced away, and this time she was the shy one, the one with something to hide. Her cheeks tinted red, as though they'd been hit with a fiery gust of wind. The noise around them—talking and shouting and someone being told off nearby by a teacher—grew inexplicably louder.
"I did want to audition," Hermione said, finally. She ate another piece of fish, gulped it down, let it settle in her stomach. "I wanted to but…Niall and the others…what if they say something? Wouldn't it be embarrassing if I went to audition and then failed completely? I'd be the—the laughing stock of the entire school."
"Who cares what they say?" Harry said, voice so strong it surprised even him. He hadn't meant for it to come out like that. But…it felt natural to him. And he leaned into it, instead of shying away. "They don't say anything about you anymore, and if you want to achieve something, why would you let them…let them talk you out of it?"
Harry turned to his own food, hotness flooding his cheeks as though chucked in a furnace. "That's not the Hermione I know."
Hermione glanced at him, eyes shining, glistening in the soft patters of light from lightsaber-looking bulbs above them.
"You really think so?" Hermione said. "You think I could audition and get the part?"
Harry smiled, teeth similarly white due to the Grangers' insistence on brushing teeth for a full two minutes twice every day. "I do think so." And that was all he said, for Harry wanted to go into a tirade once more, telling Hermione how much he truly believed in his first ever friend, in his best friend.
But the silence around them, despite the deafening noise of Niall screaming in the distance—that silence was enough to convey everything he wanted to say.
Hermione was nervous, legs jittering against the squeaky sports hall floor, arms shaking as she rubbed them against her knees. If she could describe herself, it would be in two words—a mess.
Usually, she was nervous for different reasons. Usually, before Harry Potter and The Harrowing at Hampstead (honestly, that name was absolutely horrid, like some folklore tale that wasn't even that long ago), Niall's taunts and insults, as well as the laughter of his cronies, caused her lips to tremble and her knees to shake.
Now, though, at lunchtime of the day after Miss Bailey's announcement, the prospect of auditioning got her in a right tizzy. Initially, when audition requests had gone out a month or so ago, Hermione wished deep in her heart to play a significant part.
She'd never acted in a play before, but Daddy used to do theatre when he was still in university studying dentistry. He showed Hermione, once, a few pictures from those days, taken with the rest of the cast. Who knew Daddy would be the type to spike his hair and wear a tunic for a Roman-style play?
It was certainly funny, and burned a dream into the core of Hermione's heart. That she get the chance to do the same, to have pictures like those to show her own children, when the time came for that. To have memories with friends to look back on with a fond eye.
Hermione sighed, the bench she was sitting on bristling as if trying to spear her from the backside. She shivered at the thought, and the tendrils of cold wrapped over her body like handcuffs, or those ghastly seats Mummy used in her dentistry practice to keep patients still. The last time Hermione had been strapped into it was a few years ago—it wasn't pleasant, to say the least.
And a repeat performance was certainly not on the remit, thank you very much.
"Melissa Anderson," a voice called out. Mr Hammond's voice. He was the drama teacher, only a little taller than the year sixes from what Hermione saw, with a wide smile and eccentric hand movements as if his entire life was being conducted by himself as a play.
Hermione liked him, though. He had a personality, a uniqueness to him, and despite the strangeness about his mannerisms, he was a nice man who, like Miss Bailey, cared about the children under his charge.
And, in a teacher, there was nothing more important than that.
Hermione glanced up at the large sports hall, her school shoes no longer providing enough distraction for her eyes. The hall was rather large, since basketball and football (with a softball, since a window had broken earlier in the year, courtesy of George Danvers) matches were played inside. Benches lined the side Hermione sat on, whilst bright spotlights above lit the centre in a halo of sorts, where Melissa was auditioning for the role.
Hermione watched Melissa play the perfect audition of Mary. Her lines were delivered in a smooth and buttery tone, as though her voice was tailour-made for acting. The way she expressed distress at the right times seemed so raw, so real, it was as if the girl's mind had tapped into Mary's at the time. As if their minds, for this moment, were one. Melissa's movements were fluid, and languid, and Hermione remembered the girl mentioning a ballet background that big girl, Book-Woman Hermione just didn't have.
How was she supposed to compete with that? How was anyone supposed to compete with that? Clearly, Melissa would get the role, and Hermione's audition would act as a mere formality.
The scene they were supposed to be enacting was Mary having some pregnancy pains whilst travelling to Bethlehem with Joseph. Though the actor for Joseph (a boy named Gareth Sandfield) wasn't here for the audition, the lines still had to be delivered by Mr Hammond in his typical booming voice.
Melissa finished the audition with a twirl and a bow, as though envisioning the audience marvelling at her prowess. Heck, even Hermione marvelled at Melissa's ability to act, and it took every ounce of willpower she had not to rush out of the hall and back to the playground to reunite with Harry.
Harry had told her he believed in her chances at snagging the role. And Hermione couldn't fail him without at least giving it a go. She owed that to him and her parents.
She sighed once again, then glanced around and realised she was the only one left to audition. The rest of the girls were done, had vanished from the sports hall and back to the playground. And, in the desolate silence, Hermione was alone with Mr Hammond and Lilith, one of the drama teacher assistants.
"Well, up you come, Hermione Granger," Mr Hammond said with a large smile that immediately set Hermione at ease. "You already memorised the lines for this scene? If not, I can hand you a copy of the script."
"I've already memorised it," Hermione declared. Just before sleeping last night, Hermione had quickly gone over the lines, and thankfully, the words marinated in her dreams. When she woke up this morning, the lines were set like frosting on a cake, ready to be delivered.
If only the jangling of Hermione's knees and the shaking of her arms would just stop for a minute or two.
"You ready, Hermione?" Mr Hammond asked with his arms flapping about as usual.
Hermione nodded.
Mr Hammond began.
"Oh Mary, are you feeling well, for the journey ahead seems vast and dangerous? These deserts are not fit for a lady as yourself."
"My child," Hermione wailed, as Mary. "My child is most precious to me. For that, we must persevere, dear Joseph. I feel faint…warm. Sweat curdles my skull—"
"Rest, Mary my love. Shelter is in the distance."
"Bethlehem is our destination," Hermione said. "And we must reach there, not mere shelter. Quickly."
And in that moment, something clicked in her brain. And the shaking in her legs ceased. The thoughts raging around her mind stopped. And she sunk into the role as naturally as dipping into a warm bath.
"Marvellous," Mr Hammond said, once the audition ended. His hands clapped as if wishing to shatter every window in the hall, and Lilith gave Hermione a soft smile. "Well, next week the role will be finalised and announced."
Mr Hammond lowered his tone, as though evil wasps were eavesdropping. "Though I daresay Hermione, your chances are rather splendid. Now run along, I'm sure your friends are waiting."
Before Hermione left, Mr Hammond added one last sentence that gave Hermione not just food for thought, but the entire platter.
"Thank you for your courage," he said, beaming at her.
And with that, Hermione returned to the playground, where Harry perched on a bench near the west entrance. He looked…harrowed, which was the only word Hermione knew to describe it. It was the first time Hermione had seen such a negatively contemplative look on him since…last week, probably.
What's happened? Hermione wondered as she neared. She paused in front of him as he nibbled on a granola snack bar that Mummy put into his bookbag in the morning. Eating wasn't usually allowed in the playground, but unofficially the teachers turned a blind eye. Especially for someone like Harry that really needed to gain some weight to be healthy.
He was as thin as a stick, little more than skin and bones. And Hermione didn't want that to contribute to some kind of illness in the near future.
"Harry, are you okay?" Hermione asked, moving to sit next to him. He flinched, and then glanced up at her, and then back at the concrete below them again. Hermione remembered the last time he'd behaved in such a way—something had been bothering him, eating away at his mind.
"I'm fine," he muttered.
That wouldn't work with Hermione. Not for a second was she about to accept that kind of answer from him.
"You're not fine, clearly," Hermione said. She glanced around the playground, spotted Niall on the other side, with his friends surrounding him, as they antagonised another few victims from a different class. "Did they say something to you whilst I wasn't here?"
Harry followed her gaze. "What? No, they didn't say anything…well…"
"Well what, Harry?" Hermione asked. The wind whipped Harry's hair this way and that, revealing the lightning scar on the right side of his forehead. It really was remarkable, and though stranger than fiction, intrigued Hermione as to how he'd gotten it in the first place.
Given his relatives, she didn't doubt a dark story behind it. A story that perhaps it was better for her not to know.
She shivered as the cold grasped at her knees, and it was only her thick coat that prevented the chill from spreading to the rest of her body. Whilst the smell of the earlier cake and custard lingered across her breath, Hermione sucked in the crisp November air that was slowly turning to December frost.
"Then what's got you all sad?" Hermione asked when Harry hadn't said a word. She bumped her shoulder with his, prompting a small smile from the boy. But that smile dropped faster than a plummeting plane whose engines had burst.
"What's wrong, Harry? You can trust me, you know, since we're best friends. Always and forever."
"It's…" Harry swallowed the imaginary lump in his throat—he seemed to have a lot of them—and turned to her. "You might not be bullied anymore, Hermione, and I'm…happy about that. I really am. But look." He pointed to the other side of the playground, where Niall and Melissa and Courtney were standing over another victim, a fellow girl in form 5B.
"Dahlia Glitz," Hermione said, recognising the girl. She was a little mousy, far shorter than the rest of the class, a buttoned nose that was flatter than the playground floor, and she faded into the background of the world as much as Hermione used to before Harry's arrival.
"Is that her name?" Harry asked.
Hermione nodded. "She's far more quiet than even me. I used to—well, I still do actually—talk a lot in class and answer questions. Dahlia is smarter than me at Maths, but she doesn't put her hand up—or answer any kind of questions, really. I've only spoken to her a few times, and she doesn't say much, only talks about the work. About the bullying, she…takes it all lying down, without putting up a fight."
"And putting up a fight is the most important thing," Harry muttered. "If they see you can't do anything…" His voice trailed off, meaning wisping into the air, out of grasp.
"How do you know that, Harry?" Hermione asked, leaning closer to him, as though his every word held secrets beyond the scope of the world outside of their little bubble in the playground corner.
"Because the same thing happened to me, and I couldn't fight them enough. My cousin—Dudley…he was the main person to…"
"To bully you at school?" Hermione asked. "Oh, Harry, why didn't you say this before? I knew you said you didn't have a friend, but if I knew you were—"
"Only when you were in trouble, Hermione, that's when I did something. All the times before, I couldn't do anything. And now…" He looked over at Dahlia, and Hermione noticed a sadness phase through Harry's eyes. "Now there's others that are getting bullied. It's like…nothing can stop them."
"There's always a way," Hermione said, leaning in even closer. "There's always something we can do."
"Maybe we're just stuck this way," Harry said, and Hermione knew he spoke of far more than playground squabbles and Niall's bullying antics. "Maybe…people will always be the way they are. And nothing can change them. Maybe…there's no hope."
"No," Hermione said, and gusts of wind accentuated her words, flying them right into Harry's ears. "That's not true at all. We can always change. That's the beauty in life."
"How do you know?" Harry asked.
Hermione turned to him, resolve in her voice, determination clenching her fists for her. "Because…you said before that you did nothing about bullies. But now…you stopped them from hurting me, Harry. You…it was all because of you that Niall and his friends stopped calling me names. That was all you, Harry. You're the one that stopped it. You're the one that changed to stand up to the bullies. That means we can do it again!"
The words seemed to sink into Harry, or maybe they didn't. For all he did was stare ahead, at Dahlia, and as Hermione hovered her gaze over the little girl, she couldn't help the pity from spreading across her chest.
Bullying just seemed a fact of life. But Mummy always said that something could be done to solve the problems in the world. That if we didn't believe in that, then nothing would ever be better than it was before.
And, as Harry had done for her, Hermione would try, as much as she could, to save those that suffered in Steadheath Primary School.
Hermione Granger had some brainstorming to do!
Catherine Granger was awfully confused as she watered the plants in her front garden. Though the beaming sunflowers had long since withered away at summer's end, the peonies and white roses both bloomed like never before. As with everything in nature, Catherine supposed, the two sets of plants would wither and die before being reborn after winter's end and spring's beginning. But, whilst they persevered against the tightening noose of November's chill, exhibiting their sweet, lilting scents for longer than expected, Catherine would continue to pour into them as much life as she could.
It was only when Mark walked into the driveway and spotted her that she snapped out of the mental haze gardening usually placed her in.
"How's my princess?" Mark immediately asked, leaning over to give Catherine a kiss. He pulled back, smiling as though tasting her lips for the very first time.
"Is that in reference to me, or…"
Mark chuckled, nodding to the flowers that Catherine was watering. Catherine knew, for a fact actually, that Mark couldn't care less about flowers and gardening, other than which bouquet to pick out for his wife on special occasions. Yet, his insistence on asking her questions about it warmed her heart to a different degree.
"How much longer do you think they'll last?" Mark asked.
Catherine glanced at the flowerpots, brown as slated bricks. "Well, they're fighters, so I think they'll hold out till mid-December. Christmas is a stretch, but you never know."
Mark paused for a second, then switched subjects. "What about Harry? How is he holding up?"
"He's doing fine, much better actually," Catherine said. And it was the truth, for Harry was slowly coming out of his shell. Around Mark, though, the little boy's eyes still darted around, as though danger would jump out from every corner of the house. But with Catherine and Hermione, at least, Harry was slowly accepting them as part of his daily life.
And, of course, improvement was better than nothing at all.
"Hermione's got a new initiative, by the way," Catherine said.
Mark gave a lopsided smile. "She does, does she? That girl is always up to something."
"That's right. She's devising a scheme—or so she calls it—to stop the bullying at her school. She asked me for some ideas, but I thought her and Harry should come up with something first, and then I'd look over it."
Mark's eyebrows shot up. "That's a hard one, that." He leaned in and lowered his voice, a little hard to hear given the gusts of wind in London's Novembers. "I know she's more open with you about these things. Is she still being bullied? Wouldn't it be better to focus on herself instead of stopping it wholesale?"
"Well, she's told me that…the main bully has stopped ever since Harry joined the school. Now they just leave her alone it seems. Since that incident in Hampstead Park, they've been too scared to antagonise Harry, and by extension Hermione, anymore."
Mark paused at that detail, drinking it in. "You're positive that the boy went flying through the air? It wasn't some kind of push, nothing picked him up and threw him over that you couldn't see?"
Catherine nodded, exasperated. Mark had doubted the story the entire time, chalking it up as some kind of coincidence that Catherine couldn't see. But it was true. As true as life and death. She'd seen it with her own two eyes, and Hermione agreed with the story.
Harry was as special as their own daughter, with strange occurrences, akin to magic or some supernatural abilities, that defied the basis of reality on which Catherine and Mark lived their lives.
"He's just a blessing that keeps on giving," Mark said, giving Catherine a side-hug. "I'm so glad we brought him into our lives. Thanks—ever so much—for talking me into adopting a child. It's…I know already that it's the best decision we've ever made in our lives."
"I know it is," Catherine said, and at that point Hermione poked her head out of the living room window and shouted at them both to come inside because the news broadcast said there would be rain later. Harry was with her, similarly smiling, and Catherine could only echo Mark's words and agree with them completely.
Harry really was a blessing that kept on giving.
A/N: Hope you all enjoyed, and wishing you the very best week ahead. We've just passed the halfway point of this story, and from here the pace really ratchets up as we head towards the awesome climax. Also, I haven't done a nativity play since I was seven (currently in my early 20s), so the details were a little hazy.
Stay tuned for next Saturday!
