Summary:
Hermione fills in Harry Potter on the basics of the Academy: Amiable but manipulative sweets-loving Head, her faculty pet, the hostile student-hating Potions teacher who already dislikes Harry and panders to the blonde scion of a prominent magical family, etc. They meet Miss Cackle, who knows all of Hermione's secrets.
(See the end of the chapter for AN.)
"Let's see," said Hermione. "If I remember our schedule, we have Potions first thing tomorrow morning. So I have to warn you, the Potions teacher — she's good at her craft but she hates students. All but the ones from good families, of course. She would claim it's the "competent" witches, but no one's ever seen her give Maude Moonshine a break. And she fawns over Ethel Hallow, even though she's not a patch on her sister Esmerelda. I would say the nastier you are to the less-favored students, the less Hardbroom picks on you. Quite the incentive there. You must not get on her bad side, Harry."
"Hardbroom - would that be a thin, pale woman who sort of stalks everywhere she goes with her cape billowing and a perpetual scowl at everyone?"
"Ah, you've met. That's too bad. Still, maybe she won't take an instant dislike to you. How did you meet?"
"I was talking to a very nice girl — nothing special for looks, but beggars can't be choosers ..."
"Name?"
"Millie something. Rubble? Hovel?"
"Oh God, she associates you with Mildred Hubble? Harry, she's going to hate you on sight! Did Mildred do anything wrong while you were there? Who am I kidding, of course she did, it's Mildred ..."
"No, nothing I could see," Harry replied, but too tentatively for Hermione's taste.
"What happened?"
"Well, she wouldn't hold it against me if, hypothetically, I didn't see her coming up behind us, just heard the swoosh of her cloak, turned around suddenly, and crashed into her, forcing her to drop and spoil an armload of expensive, hard-to-replace potions ingredients, right?"
"Oh, Harry!" Hermione sighed.
Harry heard footsteps approaching. In the confrontation with the Troll, she'd been forced out of her comfort zone, and it was still green enough in her memory that her body whipped around and even, to her surprise, drew her to step in front of Hermione. Unless she missed her guess, she was already getting into her pants soon, or however girls put it here, so it was a surprisingly altruistic motion. Hermione smirked watching it, but also stood back.
The potions teacher was back, looking like she wanted to chop Harry up into ingredients. Fortunately, she was accompanied by a much older woman with an air of authority. She preempted the other woman, who was still sputtering. "I'll handle this, Constance," she said. Though her tone was professional in the extreme, it was also kind of lenient - Harry had long ago mastered sussing out teachers and authority figures to calculate how far she could bend the rules in her favor without them having a cow. "You are almost certainly in no mood to be objective, and after all, this is literally little Harriet's first few hours at the Academy."
With a huff, and a glare at Harry that promised painful death later — really, it reminded Harry of the look the Troll had given boy-him when he thought they'd managed to kill him off - Hardbroom whirled around, her cloak billowing around her, and stalked off.
The older woman turned to Hermione. "Miss ... Grant, I appreciate your taking young Harriet under your wing. Millie is a delightful girl, but you are an uncommonly savvy specimen, in my estimation. Quite mature beyond your years. And with a knowledge of the Academy I haven't seen in girls several years your senior. If anyone can keep Harriet out of trouble, it would be you. And it is even more commendable coming from a student who — it is said around the Academy - usually keeps her own counsel."
Harry was grinning and trying to hide it. Hermione had been watching both of them. "What has you so amused, Miss Potter?" she asked suddenly. She hadn't said anything until then, so Harry had almost forgotten about her presence.
What had he been thinking? "Umm ... just ... you know ... Miss Cackle ... Miss Cackle." Yes, that was the sort of thing that set Harry off. He had always been a "good-time Charlie" more than some sort of Brainiac. She thought that here in England they called "bros" "lads." Harry was a dyed-in-the-wool Lad. Or now was it Ladette? Then Harry remembered Hermione was going by Grant. But not before somehow her mouth had opened and "I thought there were two Miss Cackles for a second, you know, like 'Cackle, cackle.' Umm ... dunno why." Harry turned red, which had not been a usual event for boy-Harry, to understate the case. Both of the other two stared at her. She belatedly remembered that Miss Cackle had a twin sister who quite possibly was the other Miss Cackle. Harry's idiocy kept getting worse. She missed her former good looks more than ever. Perhaps it was for the best if the headmistress assumed Harry'd heard about her evil twin.
To her surprise, Miss Cackle laughed. "Well, Miss Potter, can one have too much of a good thing?" Suddenly, more seriously, she took hold of her sleeve and Hermione's and, saying, "We must continue this talk in my office, don't you think?" she made a gesture and everything went white. The next thing Harry knew, she was leaning against the wall outside Miss Cackle's office, holding down the bile in her throat by main effort.
"You've never been through a transference spell before, have you, dear? I'll tell you a secret - I did the same, my first time. Here. Take this," said Miss Cackle, handing her what looked like a piece of candy.
"Is it magic?"
"Better. It's sugar. I never go anywhere without a bag of lemon drops. Suck on that and you'll be fine next time."
"No doubt," said Hermione with a smirk. "They're chock-full of reverse causality."
At that, Miss Cackle suddenly looked at Hermione with a penetrating gaze just shy of a glare. It seemed out of character, given her usual kindly, wise, twinkle-eyed demeanor. "You would know, wouldn't you, dear Hermione," she responded.
At that, for whatever reason, Hermione swallowed and looked uncomfortable.
"I'm not doing that ... again," Harry declared, still fighting nausea, though the lemon drop had, in fact, helped a lot.
"Gets easier, doesn't it?" asked Miss Cackle, addressing Hermione. Said girl nodded, though she looked at Harry with some sympathy.
They had just turned to enter the office when a snooty-looking blonde girl rushed up. "Miss Cackle, about my extra credit project, I wish ..." she said breathlessly.
"Dear Miss Hallow," Miss Cackle replied, "Whatever you have worked out with the faculty, I am sure will be fine. I don't tend to interfere, as you know. Moreover, you have a new classmate to welcome, and we are just getting her squared away. I present to you Miss Harriet Potter," she said, waving her hand at Harry.
"Potter ... Potter ... not a family I am familiar with," the snooty girl said. "You aren't, are you, the one who destroyed a week's supply of Miss Hardbroom's potions works with Hubble?"
Harry looked embarrassed.
The girl rolled her eyes, then directed her gaze at Hermione. "And I suppose your function has been teaching her how to ignore the rules?"
Hermione responded swiftly. "I don't know what you mean, Miss Hallow. All of the incidents where I was threatened with detention are water under the bridge, given I have never actually violated a rule."
"While that might be technically correct," began Ethel —
"Which is the best correct of all, and Harry here still needs to be squared away before the whole school day is over," Hermione continued, with an insincere smile that obviously drew the blonde's ire, but not in a way she could call out. With a harrumph and a muttered, "Thank you, Miss Cackle," she whirled around and stalked off, doing an uncanny imitation of the potions teacher.
After catching only one lesson, Harry already realized the academy would be much more work than she was usually willing to do. If that troll hadn't managed to turn into a police officer and then infiltrate the Academy, she would have probably sloughed off the work and gotten herself a girlfriend, or more likely a couple of them, to do all her work and help her crib on the tests. But as it was, she probably actually needed training. Stepping up to a responsibility was not in her comfort zone, but until she could figure out how to pass the responsibility off to someone who gave more of a damn, she was probably on the hook.
She informed her mentor of her conclusion after they all had dinner. Harry had been genial without really telling anyone anything
Hermione agreed, and told her they possibly wouldn't be able to be together "recreationally" for a few days. In the meantime, she urged her to get as much sleep as possible. She assured her none of the lessons would challenge Hermione at all, so she would have plenty of time to catch Harry up in all the subjects she had to take.
"I suppose," she said judiciously, "I won't be able to stop you from chatting up whichever birds you find the most fit, will I?"
She pondered for a half a minute. "Let's agree you limit yourself to no more than one a week, and you are discreet — not in your opinion, but in mine?" With that, she offered her hand, which Harry shook. She was just relieved Hermione wasn't going to insist on total monogamy. The school year promised to be such a drag Harry was going to need as much stress relief as she could manage. Telling her quite sternly she expected Harry to go right to sleep, Hermione took her leave.
AN:
Everything in bold is taken from the later TV version of The Worst Witch.
Reverse causality: A great deal of the Harry Potter franchise appears to have derived from the Worst Witch franchise, which began almost 20 years before it. However, some elements went the other way: Miss Cackle changed her sweets addiction from cream biscuits to lemon drops years after Dumbledore revealed his obsession with them. Hermione Cackle is pointing that out, to which Miss Cackle is responding that she would know, given that Hermione came into the Worst Witch franchise a year after Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone came out. In the parodic tradition, the 4th wall is not going to be preserved in this story whenever it is more amusing not to. It is quite possible both Rowling and Murphy simply wanted a shakespearean (or even mythological) name.
