Hermione Granger and the Year Hidden from Hogwarts
Harry Potter Fanfiction
Chapter 28
A/N: Was anyone surprised by Hermione's ancestry? More will be explained on exactly how these two seemingly random muggles tie back to these renowned lines, so don't fear. The explanations have been in my notes since before the first chapter was written.
April 25th, 1992
The Ravenclaw line held three vaults, though none half so big as the le Fay's. She did little more than perform a cursory glance inside after using her blood to open them. She didn't see anything resembling a diary like she had in the le Fay vault, so she put aside the idea of perusing the treasures for a later date.
Her energy was flagging quickly, and she wanted to secure an owl and wand at the minimum so she could complete owl orders without needing to be escorted here and back.
Flitwick cast several charms over her, cleaning her of blood, knitting her cuts, and cleaning her appearance of dust and debris before they stepped out into the bright alley. The sun was directly overhead, denoting a midday time, even though it felt like years since she first stepped foot in the magical world.
"Where to, Hermione?" Flitwick asked.
Her mind raced, and before she could answer, he noted her pallor. "Perhaps food is in order."
"But professor—" she began to protest. There was too much to do and too little time.
"Now, now, Hermione. I won't hear a word of protest. It's lunchtime, and the place I have in mind to take you serves a dual purpose. It serves as the transition between here and muggle London."
Hermione glanced at him. "You mean I'll be able to return without the apparition?"
Flitwick grinned at her enthusiasm. "Yes, and the barkeep, Tom, is well-acquainted with assisting muggle families such as yours, but I can show you the trick all the same. Let's eat, and you can share where you'd like to go during our meal."
Hermione bit her lip, glancing at the countless areas of interest, before she conceded.
"That's the spirit. And since at least half of today's events were my fault, I'll buy."
Hermione broke from her ever-growing mental checklist to give her professor a look. "Flitwick, you don't actually believe that do you? Every action you took was your attempt to shield me from potential consequences. There was no way to predict the turn things would take."
He shrugged, holding a door open of a dingy pub that read, "The Leaky Cauldron."
"So where does this exist in London?" Hermione asked, glancing around the dingy cream-colored surfaces of the plastered walls, her eyes naturally drawn to the high windows above the wooden beam rafters. They allowed in a cheerful ambiance to what otherwise could be considered a dark and dingy place.
The smells of cooking meat, seasoned vegetables, and something sweet made her mouth water.
"This way," he guided her to a table that magically produced menus the second they sat. "It resides on Charing Cross Road in London, and if you ever need into the alley, you'll go through the entrance we just took, only from this direction it will be a brick wall in a small storage room. I'll show you the brick you need to tap to gain entry."
They placed their meals with the waiter, and in no time at all had steaming platters of food in front of them, paired with goblets of pumpkin juice that Flitwick recommended.
"Where are you going to keep an owl, if you don't mind my asking," Flitwick asked as they approached the till to pay.
Hermione paused. "Oh, I hadn't thought of that. But an owl won't be able to join me in my dorm, will it?"
"It would probably be too risky given the nature of the muggles you would be asking your owl to coexist with. It's not kind to have them locked up."
Hermione deflated, her plans for carefully selecting text to tide her over tossed out the window.
"However, they are rather intelligent creatures, so as long as one is not living within your room, it should be fine to get them to deliver to you, and often times when you order via owl post, the shop will send the package out using their own owls."
Hermione perked back up, watching carefully as he tapped his wand against a brick. "Really?"
"Yes, so we'll sort out your wand, and then you can tell me which shops you intend to owl order from, and we'll pick up their catalogues. Does that sound good, Hermione?"
"Absolutely!" she breathed. It was quite breathtaking to see the transition in this direction. Going from Diagon Alley to the pub had been as magical as passing through any random doorway in London, but in the reverse? It was a sight to behold as the bricks moved simultaneously in a wave of pavers rearranging themselves into the arched entryway they'd passed through before. She grinned. "Brilliant."
"Agreed, Hermione. It is quite an impressive piece of charm work. Now, our first stop, Ollivander's."
She glanced at the sign as she entered. "Makes of fine wands since 382 B.C.? That quite an impressive rap sheet."
"And with good reason. Ollivanders have long been praised as the best wand makers in Wizarding Britain, both for their craftmanship and the quality of the materials they use in their trade."
Inside the shop, there was a small till and solitary chair. The sparse furniture made sense due to the tiny size, because there needed to be room for the thousands of narrow boxes piled all the way up to the ceiling on dusty shelves.
She hadn't been expecting quite so much selection when the street display case only held a single wand sitting atop a faded plum cushion made of velvet.
Hermione wondered if she would in fact be up to the task of accomplishing this today. "How will I know what I need?"
"You won't, young lady," an elderly man with white hair nearly as crazy as her own and pale silver eyes entered from a back room. "The wand picks the wizard."
She didn't know how to reply to that as she adjusted her mental rules to allow for the fact that inanimate objects could contain, not just essences of a person's life and memories, as she'd learn through her psychometry, but be sentient enough to accept or reject an owner.
The man's brow rose. "But that is a daunting task, considering the array of wands, and since no two wands are exactly alike, I'm here to help expedite the process. Garrick Olivander, at your service."
Hermione nearly dipped into a curtsey—with such a long-running family line, still owned by an Ollivander, it felt as if she was in the presence of knowledge-royalty—but restrained herself at the last minute. "Hermione Granger."
"Granger, of the Dagworth-Grangers?" Ollivander questioned.
If they hadn't already run the blood test on her family history, she might've wondered. "Uh, no sir. My parents are muggles."
"Ah, Muggle-born then. My mother was Muggle-born. A brilliant witch, she was." He focused back on the present, turning to Flitwick. "Filius Flitwick, how good to see you again. 13 and a quarters wand with a cross-shaped base of cherry that ended in an ancient walnut. Dragon heartstring core. I must admit, I'd been going through a bit of a fancy period when I created your wand. It took me longer than I'm willing to admit to figure out how to marry the two woods into a seamless piece. To this day, I still consider it one of the most complicated designs under my belt, but a complex wand was needed for a complex wizard such as yourself."
Hermione glanced between them, already looking to the storeowner with respect. He'd referred to Flitwick as a wizard, and after a morning of hissed "half-breed," it was refreshing, not to mention she felt a kinship with him after he'd divulged having a Muggle-born mother. "Are you two close?"
Ollivander shook his head. "I'm not sure I follow."
"Oh, well, it's just that you remembered a lot of detail about his wand."
"Ah, you see, Miss Granger, I remember every wand I've ever sold."
Her estimation of him only increased as he wasn't just an expert in his chosen profession, but he obviously had an eidetic memory to back it up if his recall was that good.
"Now, let's get you measured," he murmured to himself. He snapped his fingers, and a tape measure came alive, zipping through the air to take random measurements—her forearm, her fingertips to palm, her upper arm, her torso.
She frowned when it measured the length of her foot. "I'm sorry, but how does the size of my…" she trailed off as Ollivander had disappeared. "Where did he—"
The man reappeared with a stack of boxes that he blew the dust from. "Here we go. I think you'll do well with these. They're all in the eight to nine inches range. There are four types of wood that I think would suit you with various cores."
She glanced at the number of boxes. "How many cores are there?"
"Well, there are many cores in existence, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. My experience though has taught me that three core types are generally best to avoid problems of obstinateness and temperamental natures. So, you'll find that all Ollivanders wands are crafted with either phoenix feather, dragon heartstring, or unicorn hair."
"Only three? But there are so many options here…" she trailed off, trailing off into mental arithmetic.
"Yes, materials are sourced responsibly, only taken what is given, so it is rare that more than one core is pulled from the same animal. When that happens, we call them brother wands, but again, it is rare. And just like no two people are exactly the same, neither are the animals whose essences we use to power these wands."
Flitwick cleared his throat. "I should mention that she will be starting her second year this year."
That gave Ollivander pause. He glanced at her. "Did you get your wand from another shop, dear?"
Hermione shook her head. "This is my first wand."
Ollivander looked as if he wanted to ask more, but he instead snapped his fingers again, bringing the tape measure back to life. "This will affect my measurements. I'm used to outfitting students before their magical adventures begin, but something tells me that's not the case with you."
He didn't wait for a reply before he zipped back off, surprisingly spry.
Hermione flinched back when the boxes left on the small counter gently floated in the air before taking off, presumably to reshelve themselves. "I might sound like a broken record, but magic is brilliant."
"I assume you're implying broken records repeat themselves?" Flitwick asked, startling from her amazement and reminding her of the stark differences between the muggle world she'd been raised in and this one.
Ollivander returned with a new stack of boxes. "Here we go. These feel better." That was an odd way to phrase that. "This selection is in the ten to eleven inches range."
Hermione startled. "You pulled longer ones?"
He lifted a dusty lid off a box and handed her the wand. "Of course, why do you ask?" He mumbled to himself, "No, not that one."
"It's just that you thought I was younger than I am. Doesn't that mean I'd need a smaller wand?"
He gave her a sardonic grin with the next wand. "I'm afraid wandcraft isn't quite so logical as that. Give it a whirl."
Feeling silly, she shook the stick, and still nothing happened.
"Hmm," he murmured, sorting out a small section of the stack as if he'd eliminated something. "No cherry wood, then. I'd wondered since you seem to share a bond with Filius here. Ah, let's try some vine options. They're associated with September birthdays and the autumnal equinox."
Hermione's eyes rounded. "I'm born in September."
He gave her a secretive smile but didn't say anything, just watching as she tried it out.
Still, she didn't feel anything, but he nodded. "That was closer. Let's try a little longer, I think. Perhaps ten and three quarters, and… ah, here we are, dragon heartstring. I have a good feeling about this."
Feeling equal parts anticipation and pressure, she picked the wand up… but again, felt nothing.
Visibly confused and disappointed, Ollivander paused.
Flitwick cleared his throat. "She is rather magically depleted. Could that be affecting the process?"
"No, no, no… but I was almost sure…" Ollivander trailed off, a new level of excitement in his voice.. "I haven't had this much of a challenge since Mr. P—oh, well, perhaps I shouldn't say." He snapped his fingers after a long moment of silence. "Time for a new strategy."
With a careless wave of his hand, the boxes zoomed off to their resting places, clearing the counter for the small, compartmented trunk he pulled from beneath the desk. It reminded her of her dad's tackle box for fishing.
"Instead of blindly marching forward, let's approach this more scientifically, shall we? I've got samples of wand wood and cores here, we'll find what you respond to—and just to verify my presumption about your compatibility with vine, we'll start with woods." He flicked his own wand and two draws pulled out and then smaller drawers shot out either side of each until a wide variety of multicolored samples were displayed.
"I didn't even know there were so many varieties of trees," she breathed.
Ollivander gave a proud nod. "Every species known to wizards. Hover your hand over them, and I'll let you know when to stop."
Hermione did so, still feeling nothing, but barely a third of the way through, he ordered her halt.
"Alder. Lightweight and extremely tolerant to adversity. Alder is also works better than any other wood with nonverbal spells." He gave her an assessing look, his silvery eyes shifting, before he nodded and sent the wood samples back within the trunk to display the cores.
There were a lot less of these, ranging from impossibly colored feathers, glowing and sometimes literally sparkling hairs, and down to spines and stringy things.
"Go ahead," he nodded.
She repeated her actions, and while she never felt anything, she watched his reactions, noting when he shifted about halfway through, and then again near the end.
He brought his hand to his chin and crossed his arm. "Well, there were two potentials, both uncommon. While you did show some interaction with the dragon heartstring, you reacted most strongly to the nundu spine and thestral hair."
Without even knowing what a thestral was, Hermione shook her head. "Not nundu."
He gave her another one of those assessing looks, and she wondered how much his strange eyes saw. "Thestral it is, then, though it is rather ominous. Thestrals are considered bad omens since only those who've seen death firsthand have the ability to perceive them, and wands with those cores are often have a tendency towards death magic."
Hermione burst with excitement, finally feeling something. "No, that sounds perfect, actually."
Ollivander nodded. "Of course. Just because of their negative connotations, that does not mean they're not powerful in their own right. It is even rumored that the Elder Wand of the famed Deathly Hallows contained a thestral tail hair core."
"Deathly Hallows?"
"From the story of the three brothers." Ollivander waved her off. "Just a silly bedtime story in the wizarding world. Now, since thestral is not one of the three cores I use, I'll have to make a custom piece. As such, I'll just take a few more readings since you won't have the luxury of choice."
"By all means," Hermione spread her arms out, eager excitement giving her a burst of energy.
Ollivander chuckled. "Of course, since it is a custom job, it will cost a bit more."
She nodded. "That's fine. I can pay for it today."
"That's not necessary. Besides, you'll need to return so that I can see if it fits you correctly or if I'll need to make adjustments."
Hermione's excitement deflated. She'd been hoping he could just send it via owl.
"Don't fret, Miss Granger. You'll have a wand in no time."
Time…
"Time! Professor, what time is it? I have to be back before my afternoon session with Trainer—" she broke off in horror, recalling how Erl had reached out through the bond. "Oh, we have to go!"
Flitwick's face twisted in concern. "Miss Granger?"
"Something might be wrong at home," she said pointedly, not wanting to explain more.
"Say no more, Hermione. We'll return, post haste."
"Thank you, Mr. Ollivander," she called, but it was hardly necessary.
The wandmaker waved a distracted hand in goodbye, already murmuring to himself as he toted his case of materials to the back of his shop.