eleven (ii)

Her parents have asked her, repeatedly, if she is sure she wants to go, but Hermione is nothing if not stubborn: she promised Draco she would, and so she must. The first of September dawns bright and chilly. Hermione, who has always been an early riser, awoke at six and had breakfast alone in the kitchen while her parents were still in bed. Then she whiled away the intervening hours reading. She's long since finished Wuthering Heights and moved onto other books, mostly Muggle, but today she flips through the copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard she took from Draco's house so long ago, when she was less than half the age she is now. It has been read so many times over the years that the pages are dog-eared and spine cracked.

She's seen Draco only rarely all summer. He's been busy, of course. First his family were on holiday in France, then her family went camping in the Forest of Dean. When she got back, they met up in Diagon Alley or Malfoy Manor a few times, but initially it felt kind of strange. She could tell Draco was dying to tell her about all his new experiences, his new wand and new broomstick and the new school robes she could see folded away in the new trunk emblazoned with the Malfoy crest and his initials. In a surprising demonstration of restraint, he mostly resisted the urge to brag, but somehow that was worse than him bragging: she's used to how Draco is, and she doesn't like change. Finally she threw one of his signed Snitches at him and told him not to be stupid and tell her stuff, so he did. It's a bittersweet outcome. Now she knows all about what he's been up to, which is painful, but the alternative - being ignorant - is even more so.

The Dagworth-Grangers issue forth from their house at ten into cold autumn sunlight. They live in a small, slightly rundown townhouse in north London, concealed from Muggle eyes by a variety of spells and charms. The family is an old one but wasn't particularly wealthy until her father came along; his potions expertise has revitalised their Gringotts account. Not to Malfoy standards, of course, but who could compete with centuries of noblemen and politicians?

Hermione settles into the middle front seat of their car, a faded blue Mini. It's unremarkable by wizarding standards but she doubts Muggle versions of this car have sprawling front seats that could seat five, navigational charms that ensure the vehicle will never take a wrong turn, or repelling spells so that any object about to be crashed into will jump out of the way. She and her parents are quiet as they pull out into the meagre Sunday morning traffic. Draco's family will be meeting them on the platform.

Within half an hour, they're at the grand arches of Kings Cross Station. Hermione has never been here before, and she sticks close to her parents as they wend their surefooted way through crowds of milling passengers. Her breath is starting to come faster, tighter. She looks at every adolescent they pass, examining for signs. Is that tall blonde teenager a witch, like she'll never be? Might that dark-haired boy with glasses be a wizard?

They arrive at the barrier separating platforms nine and ten. "Come this way, Hermione," her father mutters, his eyes scanning their surroundings. "We'll just lean on the wall - like this - "

He rests his back casually on the dark red brickwork, and in the next instant he's disappeared, sliding into its solidity like it's so much air. Hermione blinks at it, mildly surprised but not shocked. It's much less showy than the entrance to Diagon Alley. With her mother, she wanders unobtrusively over to the wall, then ducks through.

Instantly her senses are assailed by noise. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters is a riot of steam and sound, the former billowing from a great black train standing several feet away on the tracks, the latter a result of the hundreds of people thronging the platform. Everywhere she looks she can see them - some dressed in wizarding robes, others in the oddly restrictive clothing Muggles favour, talking and laughing and chattering. Owls are screeching, cats are hissing, girls are shrieking, boys are yelling. It takes everything Hermione has not to slink straight back through the platform barrier and retreat, dazed, all the way home.

Only the knowledge that Draco is waiting for her somewhere in this melee keeps her where she is.

"Right," her mother says brightly, with only one anxious sidelong glance at Hermione. "Let's find the Malfoys, shall we?"

Resisting the urge to reach for her mother's hand like a toddler, Hermione trails after her.

At first she determines to keep her eyes on the ground. Looking at all these children is too painful, and the sound of merriment as friends reunite after a summer apart is scraping her every nerve raw. But she can't help herself: soon she's darting looks up out of the corner of her eye, and before long she has abandoned the ground entirely, drinking the sights in.

"There they are," Mr Dagworth-Granger says, his long legs affording him a view over most people's heads. "Lucius! Narcissa!"

"Ah, Hector," comes Mr Malfoy's cool voice, and Hermione stumbles to a stop behind her parents.

Despite the crowded platform, the Malfoys are standing in their own circle of space. Draco's parents look as they usually do, both dressed in robes of severe, fine-cut black that scream expense, even to Hermione's untrained eye. And Draco - Draco himself is already in his Hogwarts uniform, preening by his father's side. The darkness of his clothes accentuates his white-blond hair and light eyes. His lips tick up at the corner when he sees her.

"I knew you'd come," he says smugly, while their parents exchange greetings above their heads. Grabbing her wrist, he tugs her a little way apart from them.

"I promised I would," Hermione says through gritted teeth. She pulls herself free from his grasp. As usual, it's not tight enough to hurt, but always too tight for comfort.

"Yeah, that's right," he says, as though remembering. "You're pretty good about keeping your promises, aren't you? You definitely wouldn't have been put in Slytherin."

She shrugs uncomfortably. Normally she'd have a sharp rejoinder at the ready, something like You, on the other hand, will fit right in, but she's too on edge at the moment to voice it. In all this sea of people, Draco is the only one she really knows, and soon he'll be leaving her.

Glancing at her when she fails to retort, he changes tack. "Look at this owl Mother and Father got me!" He steps aside so she can see the large wrought-iron cage perched on top of his luggage trolley. Inside is a magnificent eagle owl, sharp-beaked and fierce, its eyes gleaming bright orange against its grey-speckled white feathers. Despite herself, Hermione is impressed.

"Wow," she says admiringly.

"Nice, isn't he?" he says. "Haven't named him yet, though."

He reaches out through the bars and strokes the owl. Tentatively she mimics him. Its feathers are soft as down beneath her fingertips.

"If I had a pet, I think I'd quite like a cat," she says absently.

Draco frowns. "What are you talking about? You know you're going to have to buy an owl!"

She stares at him. "What?" This is news to her.

"You have to buy an owl," he repeats, slower, looking at her as though at one of poor understanding. "How else are we going to write to each other? We can't both keep using mine, sometimes you'll want to write to me when he's not already with you…"

"Um," she mumbles. She can't say she's considered that. She's not considered much of anything, really, beyond the fact that Draco is going off to school to learn magic, while she… won't. She has been told she will be starting tutoring this week, however. She's not sure what kind of tutoring yet, but she's looking forward to learning something, even if it isn't how to harness the magical power she doesn't have.

The idea of writing to Draco while he's at Hogwarts hasn't really crossed her mind. She's vaguely surprised he even raised the topic; isn't he tired yet of his old Squib friend? He'll definitely tire of her once he's at Hogwarts, anyway, surrounded by people who can actually do the things he does, who are his equals.

Before she can respond to him - not that she had any idea what she was planning to say - an unwelcomely familiar voice breaks in on them.

"Draco!" it squeals.

With rising dread, Hermione pivots on her heel to face it.

An influx of newcomers has arrived at their circle. At the very forefront is Pansy Parkinson, round-faced and pug-nosed, her expression sparkling. She's grown taller since Hermione last saw her, at Draco's eleventh birthday party two months ago, where she poured pumpkin juice on Hermione's new blue robes and said it was an accident. Lumbering up next to her are Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. Hermione has always had trouble distinguishing them; they have matching dark buzzcuts and tower over the other eleven-year-olds. Last is Theodore Nott. Something about his quiet, sleek self-assurance has always rubbed Hermione the wrong way. Draco gets on very well with him. She bites the insides of her cheeks when Theodore arrives at Draco's side, his eyes pale as winter against his stark black hair, hard until it hurts her.

They're all in their Hogwarts uniform. Next to them her green robes are undeniable: she is not a student.

She looks at her parents, lightning-fast, but they're busy greeting the Parkinsons and Crabbes and Goyles and Notts. She's on her own.

"Draco!" Pansy shrieks. She barrels past Hermione and looks for a moment as though she intends to hug him, then thinks better of it. "I'm so excited - ooh, is that your owl? Mummy and Daddy are getting me one too - "

Draco's expression is the remote, faint sneer he has learnt from his father, but Hermione knows him well enough to tell that he's in a good mood as he sweeps his eyes over his assembled companions. Unconsciously or otherwise, they've all gravitated towards him; there's an unspoken understanding amongst the pureblood children their age that he is the leader. Ignorant though she is of most social nuances, Hermione can feel this one.

She can feel too the others' unabashed stares raking over her. It takes everything she has to keep her expression composed. She knows they wonder why Draco bothers to tolerate her - and now, whatever suspicions they might have had before, they even know that she's a Squib. Devoid of uniform or luggage, she is quite clearly not Hogwarts-bound. Draco's friendship has always been enough to protect her from any overt taunts they might have had, but she can't imagine that'll last much longer. As Draco and Theodore fall into an easy conversation about Quidditch, while Pansy watches them avidly, Hermione starts edging away from them.

What is she even doing here? Why did she come?

An ear-piercing whistle slices through the steam-wreathed air. "It's time to board!" says Mrs Parkinson, a willowy brunette as different from her daughter as the moon is from the sun. All around them, parents enfold their children in final hurried hugs. Draco is being embraced tearfully by his mother, and his father has an arm wrapped around her while he squeezes his son's shoulder.

Hermione is still backing away when Draco emerges and, turning his head until he sees her, narrows his eyes. "Remember to write to me!" he calls sharply, even as he's being swept up towards the belching train by a tide of students. "And don't become best friends with anyone else. And buy that owl. And - "

Laughing despite the bone-deep ache spreading through her, Hermione lifts her hand in farewell. "Goodbye, Draco!" she calls back. She watches as he leaps up onto the train, followed by the others. When Theodore disappears inside she presses her nails so tightly into her palms they carve half-moons on her skin, but it's not like there's anything she can do about him. Now, finally free of her, it's someone like Theodore Nott who's going to be everything to Draco that she was. The only surprise is that it took this long.

The platform clears quickly after the train departs. Hermione doesn't even realise she's crying until her mother brushes her shoulder, and then she shudders, surprised to find the taste of salt when her tongue flickers out to wet her dry lips. Wordlessly her mother blots her face with the sleeve of her robes.

Together, the three Dagworth-Grangers go home.

Hermione's lessons begin a few days later. Her new tutor is a short redhaired woman called Charity Burbage, a former Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts. She comes to the house every weekday and together they map out a curriculum: History of Magic, Arithmancy, wizarding literature, and more. Despite her anticipation, part of Hermione knows it will be painful to be learning anything at all, like pressing her nose up against a window on a cold winter's night to look into a room warmed by a roaring fire. But she can't help herself. She will never go to Hogwarts, yet she can do nothing else but learn as much as the real students do - to the extent she can.

For a moment she wonders what it would be like to be a Muggle. They don't have magic at all, and their lessons must be so different as to be unfathomable. What exactly do they fill their schooldays with, if not Charms and Astronomy and Transfiguration? Her Muggle reading hasn't so far shed light on this topic

Potions is not on her new curriculum. There are some subjects where one can perform adequately without magic, but that isn't one of them; it takes the spark of wizardry to ignite the ingredients, so that they combine to produce solutions which are more than the sum of their parts. If she were to try and brew anything, it would simply lie inert in her cauldron.

Her father built his career in potions. She will never be able to work with him.

Work: what work can she do, exactly? She will sit only a very few wizarding examinations, the ones that are purely theoretical, and without more nobody will ever hire her for anything real. The Dagworth-Grangers have enough money that she could live a moderately comfortable lifestyle without needing to work, but that's not Hermione's style. She has to find something to do with her life, or she'll go mad.

Burbage is refreshingly unsentimental about it. "Yes, we both know you can't do magic," she says briskly. "But that doesn't mean you aren't talented, Hermione. You're only twelve years old. There's plenty of time for us to discuss what you might do. Why, there are many Muggles who are cleverer than wizards!"

Hermione has to repress a smile at the thought of what Draco would say if he heard that.

She has worked hard not to think of Draco since he left. Jealousy stabbed viciously into her stomach every time she thought of him jumping onto the train, flanked by Theodore Nott and Pansy Parkinson, and if she kept it up she would've gone insane. So she puts him out of her mind every time he wanders across it. She won't think about which house he was Sorted into (not that there was ever any doubt) or how he's finding his lessons.

The owl appears the morning after her twelfth birthday. Hermione wakes up to a sharp rapping at her window; for a few moments, in dream-hazed confusion, she can't understand what it is. Then she sees the shadow of the bird at her window.

Her heart leaps into her throat. It's surely her owl - her Hogwarts owl - carrying a letter, where it'll apologise for being late, but they've checked the register scroll again and a mistake was made, they'd like to extend her an invitation -

But the envelope in the owl's talons is sealed with black wax, not green, and as she blinks the sleep from her eyes, she realises the owl is familiar. It's Draco's. Now her heart is pounding for a different reason, even as she feels a sick swoop of self-hatred for letting herself believe, if only for a moment, that it was a Hogwarts letter.

She rips open the letter viciously.

Hermione

His scrawl is long and looping, each letter taking up more than its fair share of the page.

Happy birthday. You thought I'd forgotten, didn't you? Hope you like your present, I got Mother to send it to me so I could send it to you - we can't leave the castle for Hogsmeade until third year. How are things with you? I got Sorted into Slytherin, of course, and I see a lot of Uncle Severus. He's my head of house, don't remember if I mentioned it to you.

He had. Hermione greedily absorbs the rest of the letter.

So far we've had lessons in Potions (Uncle Severus teaches that), History of Magic, and Care of Magical Creatures. Be grateful you weren't there for that one - it's taught by a great dribbling lump called Hagrid with absolutely no clue what he's doing.

Anyway, I'd better go now - Theo and Harry want to go try out our broomsticks on the Quidditch pitch, even though we can't be on the team yet. I'll make Crabbe and Goyle keep score, you know they haven't yet invented the broomstick that won't collapse if they tried getting on it. You can reply using this owl. He doesn't have a name yet so you can name him, you must have some good names from all your reading. Make sure you buy your own owl soon though.

There's no signoff, as though he's that confident his voice is too distinctive to be mistaken for anyone else's, or else that nobody else would be writing to her. He's right on both counts.

She upends the envelope, and a small golden piece of parchment flutters to the ground. It's a twenty-Galleon book voucher to Flourish and Blotts. Hermione stoops to pick it up, then her eyes return to the final paragraph of the letter. Since when has Draco referred to Vincent and Gregory by their surnames? She mouths the unknown name Harry.

A new friend. He made her promise not to replace him, and here he is already, replacing her with not just one person, but two.

Rage scorches through her, worse than she's ever felt before, and before she quite knows what she's done she's the letter is in two pieces in her hands. She's breathing hard. How dare he? How dare he write and tell her about his fun new life, and his fun new friends who aren't her? He's always had a streak of cruelty in him, but it's usually turned against other people. This is the worst thing he's ever done to her. She's even almost angry enough to tear up the book voucher, too, but her innate love of reading stops her. As a compromise she stuffs it out of sight into her pillowcase and promises herself she'll never touch it.

Burbage remarks on Hermione's silent, ferocious determination that day, the way she throws herself into the day's rations of Arithmancy and Runes, but what she doesn't see is the fact that Hermione is deriving no pleasure from it. Everything hurts. Seeing her mother's wand twirling as she uses it to chop onions in the kitchen - hurt. The smell of fluxweed coming off her father's robes as he comes home from a day at the lab - hurt. And knowing that Draco's letter lies upstairs in her rubbish bin, while she's downstairs working at subjects she can never use and never do well in, not as well as a witch: that's the worst hurt of all.

The eagle owl stays for several days, then finally flies away once she makes it clear she has no intention of giving it a message to carry back. It returns with a new letter a few weeks later, though, and then a new one, and a new one, and a new one after that. She throws them all away unopened.

Finally, as the year draws to a close and November bleeds into December, the letters stop coming completely. She tells herself she's glad, and that she knew it would happen. That part at least is true.