AN: I'm not usually one to quote the movies since I consider them to be on the level of fanfiction anyway (though less so for the first two, which are much closer to the tone of the books), but there are two quotes included in this chapter to help highlight a certain dimension in a character's development.
.o0O0o.
"That should be you done," Madam Malkin said from behind Harry as she carefully removed the pinned robe from his shoulders. "If you step over here we can find your other things while I get these robes ready for you."
Hermione felt the touch of his fingertips leave hers and watched in the mirror as he followed the shopkeeper to disappear around a corner, leaving her with Marjorie. The older girl glanced at her and shook her head.
"Merlin, you've got it bad, don't you?" the curly haired girl asked as she removed the unfinished robe from Hermione's shoulders.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said stuffily.
"There's no use denying it, I'm the one mooning over Quality Quidditch Supply-guy, remember?" Marjorie said with a slight smirk. "I know another mooner when I see one, and I never said it was a bad thing," she winked. "You go on and step into the changing room and I'll pass you some odds and ends to see what fits," the girl said with a gesture.
Hermione's first thought was to say it was none of her concern as she walked into the changing room, that would put more of a professional distance between them. When she looked to where the girl had gestured though all she saw was a rack of robes.
"She always over orders," the assistant said with a huff and an instant later the rack disappeared, revealing a door large enough for privacy but small enough to hand clothes back and forth. "There we go," the curly haired girl said with a smile and holding the door for her. "You nip in there and I'll get you sorted out."
Hermione went inside and tried not to stew on how the moment being gone and girl being nice to her meant she couldn't be as prickly as she wanted to be without looking overly mean. She turned to see a full length mirror and felt her blood run cold as she saw her mother scowling back at her. She knew at once that she'd made a mistake – her mother didn't have hair like that – but it didn't make the shock any less. With wobbly legs, Hermione sat on the small seat the room had as she waited for her stomach to come back up from the floor.
Her father always said she looked just like her mother when she was mad but this was the first time she had gotten a blast of it herself. She'd always thought it was just a joke he told when she was frustrated with him, one of his ways of prodding her into being less Puckle and more Granger; now she knew they were scarily similar. It wasn't her mother's full force Inhuman Scowl of Disapproval, just the look she had when she'd had enough of mankind for a while, but she hadn't expected to be the one giving it.
"You're really scary sometimes, you know that? Brilliant, but scary," Ron had said the night she'd put Neville in the Full Body-Bind, and she hadn't even been mad at the time.
How many times had she been irritated, annoyed, or scowled at them last year? She didn't even know where to begin with her estimate since it seemed to happen at least once or twice a week. Had she looked like that every time, or were some of them even worse?
"She's a nightmare, honestly. No wonder she hasn't got any friends." Ron had said that about her too, but it described her mother to a T. She hadn't thought of it at the time, she'd been too focused on it being a death knell to her ridiculous delusion that in coming to the wizarding world she'd find people like herself to make the connection.
There was only one person who was really like her in that regard: her mother. She'd been so determined to become just like her when she was younger that in the end she had – and no one wanted to be around her. She was astonished her father put up with her mother long enough to get married, let alone stay married. The man had to have the patience of a saint and it was a miracle Harry reciprocated her interest in the slightest if that's what he had to deal with more often than not.
No wonder she'd been doing everything she could to irritate and harass her mother this summer, she was everything about herself she'd grown to hate, everything that made other people hate her and made life difficult – except for school, well, homework and test-taking to be precise. If you focused on those two areas alone then being like her mother was a good thing. She had nearly encyclopedic knowledge on anything she was interested in – it was like she had the Internet in her head, but with much faster dial-up – the drawback was that when dealing with people she was absolutely dreadful.
Using other people as the norm, something had to be wrong with her mother. Hermione had always called her a robot – and in many ways she was – but that was because for all the words she had, for all the ones she'd researched and knew how to spell, she didn't have any words to describe her mother better than that one: robot. If she only had a name for what it was then perhaps living with her wouldn't be so bad, but as it was…
"Here you go," Marjorie said, passing over a few uniform shirts to hang on a hook on the door. "Try those on and tell me which one fits. And which of these is yours?" she asked, dangling two ties over the door: one the black and yellow of Hufflepuff, the other the blue and bronze of Ravenclaw.
"Neither, I'm a Gryffindor," Hermione said as she got to her feet and removed her shirt to try the others on.
"Really?" the girl asked, genuinely surprised. "The Houses really do take in all kinds, don't they?" The ties whipped back over the door.
As she tried on the first shirt Hermione wondered for a moment what the other Hogwarts Houses actually thought of each other. Stereotypes were rife, of course, but just because every Slytherin they've interacted with has fit the mold of 'evil in training' doesn't mean they all actually were. If Harry's grandparents really turned out to have been in Slytherin she didn't see how that could be the case.
As a House they were supposed to be ambitious and cunning, though Malfoy's only ambition seemed to be to swim through a bin of his father's money like a billionaire duck and he had all the cunning of a brick wall. And she knew not all Gryffindors were brave and true knights in shining armor standing up for what's right, even if it's hard. If Dumbledore himself wasn't enough evidence of that, one of the worst people she'd ever heard of came not from Slytherin but Gryffindor. Betraying a lifelong friend and their family to their deaths for your own personal gain was a horrible thing to do, but it's precisely what Sirius Black had done and it was only by chance Harry had survived.
The first shirt was quickly discarded for being too short though looking at her ill-named training bra it wasn't as snug as she'd hoped. Hermione knew she shouldn't care about her appearance; she should be judged on her own merits based on what she could do, not who she was, who her parents were, or what she looked like. Thinking it didn't stop there from being this other element as well though simply because she thought it shouldn't be there.
It also didn't help that the other girls were the ones so often doing the judging, like it was some sort of race and if you weren't speeding to the finish line at all times then you were dead last and failed by default. By the end of the term Lavender had already started doing "exercises" to enhance her bust, spurred on by Susan Bones of Hufflepuff being an early bloomer. Only Parvati thought it might help.
Intra– and intersexual selection she had learned it was called, when she'd finally gotten the courage to ask her mother for a bra this summer – not that she really needed it at the moment when they wore a sweater over their shirts as a part of their uniform. Either way it was something she didn't think her father would be able to handle – especially not after hearing about Harry. As frustrating as doing anything with her mother was, sometimes there were benefits to how clinical she could be about things.
It didn't soothe matters at all though to learn that in some ways they really were engaged in that kind of competition. Human beings, both males and females, had evolved to judge the fitness of themselves and each other based on their appearance and perceived desirability as mating partners, and fighting against two hundred thousand years of evolution purely because you think it shouldn't be that way was only going to have a nominal effect at most.
While her mother's sentiments helped form many of the building blocks for her notions of gender equality, they were equally good at knocking holes in them again. Hermione supposed her mother would call that 'realism'; she called it disappointing.
Still, she tried to remind herself that if appearances were really all that important then there wouldn't be a witch or wizard who didn't look like supermodels, but if altering your appearance like that was something they hadn't even thought of – like having a tag in your clothes with standard sizes or paying for postage – then she certainly wasn't going to give them the idea. Then she'd be the one responsible for everyone having to keep up the charade or be ostracized, and she'd go from being about average-looking to the ugliest girl in the country overnight when she refused to go along with it.
The second shirt was better; a little loose, but it should be good enough to last the year, which would mean the third would probably feel like she was wearing a tent. She quickly removed it and retrieved her periwinkle top, putting the uniform shirts back on their hangers and handing them back over the door.
"You find one you like," Marjorie asked as she came over, "or did you need some more?"
"The second one's good," she answered.
"Did you need–?"
"No," Hermione quickly cut in, knowing there was only one thing the curly-headed shop assistant who seemed to enjoy embarrassing people would ask about at that point.
"–Socks?"
That wasn't it. Lacking anyone to share a put upon look with she shared it with herself in the mirror. Jumping in to interrupt like that had let the girl play all innocent and turn the whole thing into an even bigger joke, though she had to admit it was decent. Her father would've said 'free books' just to hear her torment when he agreed and said she probably had too many already.
"I've got some skirts for you to try," the girl said, handing them over, "and I've almost got your robes done. People usually go with three or did you want to go with four?"
"Four was too many last year," Hermione said as she scrutinized the skirts to see which seemed most likely to fit. "Even with all the abuse they went through I never had to use all four."
"The house-elves really do a great job up there, don't they?" Marjorie asked. "It was quite a change to graduate and suddenly have to see to my own things. That's one thing they don't teach you there."
"They have house-elves at Hogwarts?" she asked curiously, pausing as she slipped off her periwinkle espadrilles.
"Oh, sure, loads of them," the girl answered as she continued to make muffled noises from the other side of the door. "They're supposed to have the largest number of any place in Britain. All those times I tickled the pear between classes to nick food, I must've seen at least a hundred of them."
"I've never seen them," she said as she quickly shimmied into the chosen skirt to minimize the amount of time she'd be exposed if the door burst open by chance; it looked right on the hanger but turned out to be just a bit short. Looking in the mirror, Hermione thought all those stairs at Hogwarts might have made her butt get bigger.
"Well, they must be busy," Marjorie explained. "The cooking and wash alone for a thousand kids or more is no easy job, then there's cleaning the classrooms, bathrooms, common rooms, and hallways once everyone's gone to bed – they must be having a blast up there, no wonder you can never find one who wants to leave."
Pulling up the next likely skirt, Hermione paused. Was work not just something house-elves needed to survive, but was it also fun: the harder the work the more fun they had? It didn't make any rational sense, but nothing about house-elves did.
"What do you mean, 'tickled the pear'?" she curiously asked as she buttoned up the skirt on one side; zippers were another thing these wizards could use.
"Oh, there's this stairway leading down below the Great Hall," Marjorie said offhandedly. "Just tickle the pear in the bowl of fruit and you're right in the kitchens. Now if you go and gain weight, don't you go blaming me," she finished with a chuckle.
The second skirt worked. It was longer than she liked – several finger-widths below the knee – but she was sure her father wouldn't mind when he became the overprotective father; it was bound to happen at some point. Hermione took it off and got redressed.
"If you don't mind me saying so," the girl from outside said in a carrying whisper, "I feel like I should apologize for Aunt Maggie. We've all heard his story countless times so to us it feels like he's part of the family. I didn't want you to think we were picking on you since you got splashed with a bit of it."
"You mean Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Of course," Marjorie responded. "Aunt Maggie's always been a bit standoffish but now it looks like she's adopted him. If you'd asked me a month ago I'd've said he was like a little brother of mine that's always out of sight somewhere getting into trouble, but now he's stopped by it's more like he's a young cousin who's fun to tease," she said with a smile that was obvious even through the closed door.
Hermione had known Harry was famous and everyone in the wizarding world knew his story, but she had never considered what it was really like. On the one side of the coin were those ridiculous bodice-ripper books, but on the other perhaps people empathized with him even when they didn't know him.
"So, why apologize for 'Aunt Maggie'?" Hermione asked, wondering who this woman could be.
"Oh, you know – 'head over heels,' 'get pricked,' 'bundle of trouble'–"
"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, suddenly catching on. "'Aunt Maggie' is–"
"Miss Margaret Malkin, the maniacally mad madam of modifying, mending, and manufacturing modern magical material merchandise," she said succinctly.
Hermione paused while drawing on her shoes to look at the door as if she could see the girl beyond it.
"My dad plays that same silly game of aligning any articulation available to assume annoying alliteration," she said finally, her mind working furiously to figure out something to fit; it had always been much harder than she thought it'd be, doing that at the drop of a hat.
"Really?" the girl asked, genuinely surprised again. "Well your hair says you're muggleborn, but I wouldn't be surprised if you've got magical blood in you somewhere down the line. That's the theory anyway, isn't it?"
"You mean the possibility that muggleborns could have a real historical connection to the wizarding world?" Hermione asked as she came out of the changing room with the skirts in hand. "And how would my hair mark me out as a muggleborn?" she asked, glancing into the large mirror again to see what damage the clothes changing had done to her hair.
"That's certainly one way to say it, but it's not like anyone's ever proven it – or really looked into it," Marjorie said as she took the ill-fitting skirts back to their rack and returned with some extra changes of the one she wanted as Hermione tried to flatten her hair a bit.
"I don't think anyone's ever monitored what's happened to squibs when they went off into the muggle world," she said when she got back. "I think the Ministry thinks it's a kindness, letting them go off and try to forget about us and all. Anyway, it could be worse," Marjorie said darkly, "I heard some families used to off their offspring, the ones who couldn't..."
That topic made the feeling of the shop feel much less welcoming. Marjorie must've realized she put a foot wrong and busied herself folding and adding the skirts to the small collection of clothes she'd laid out, she even had socks. While she'd been trying things on it seemed like the older girl had spent her time shortening the outer robes to fit, collecting all the other uniform bits she needed with the right coloring, and arranging them almost as fastidiously as Hermione would have done.
Regardless of what 'some families' used to do, if the bank had been open – and it wouldn't be pushing their luck – she might've considered checking out that Latent Legacy Lineages office the goblin had mentioned yesterday, but as it was, she certainly didn't want to give them the chance to shanghai something she may one day look back on as a date.
"But as for your hair," the curly-haired girl said when she was done stacking the clothes as if there hadn't been a break in the conversation, "if you'd been raised in the wizarding world, someone would've told you about this already."
Out from her pocket came the girl's wand, which she pointed towards the register and small shelves of random goods beyond. "Accio Sleekeazy's," Marjorie said.
A green and blue bottle jumped off a shelf and flew at them as fast as a bullet. Hermione ducked out of the way just in time for it to slam into Marjorie's open hand; luckily it didn't break.
"Ow!" the girl gasped, transferring the bottle to her other hand and shaking the one she caught it with as if to lessen the pain. "I was always iffy with Summoning Charms," Marjorie admitted, handing the bottle over to her. "I could never get the power right."
'Sleekeazy's Hair Potion & Scalp Treatment,' the label read, 'Suitable for all hair types. Unique results for gingers.'
"What does it do for gingers?" Hermione asked, the image of a bald and panicking Ron springing to mind.
"I never got a chance to find out," Marjorie said with a smile. "We tried to get one of the Weasley brothers to give it a go when I was in school, but neither of them was mad enough to try."
"Fred and George?" Hermione asked, wondering why those two wouldn't be up for trying anything at least once.
"No, Bill and Charlie," the other girl said with a curious look. "Just how many of them are there?"
"Seven," Hermione said after a quick mental check, "but one of them's a girl."
Marjorie shook her head in disbelief.
"Prolific breeders aside," the slightly wide-eyed shop assistant said as she went for a bag for her clothes, "If you go by what the instructions say on that, it'd end up taking hours and use most of the bottle, but if you mix about a quarter of it into your shampoo and give it a good shake every time before you use it – more if you want less curls than mine – it works just the same. Went through loads of it before I hit on that trick," she finished with a wink.
"Thank you," Hermione said, both for the potion and for the advice.
"Don't mention it," Marjorie said as she packed her things. "We wild-haired girls need to stick together."
Looking at the bottle which promised to put an end to all her hairstyle heartaches, if the advertising were true, Hermione began to think she'd judged the older girl too quickly. It seems as though in trying to acquire her mother's strengths she'd also taken on her weaknesses – she was far too judgmental and antisocial for her own good, and right after she had told Harry he shouldn't turn away new friends too.
She had always prided herself on being practical, but here was an entire sphere of everyday-practicality she never would've known about had she pulled a Puckle and made Marjorie leave her alone. If she had, she would've been just like the other girl and left absolutely clueless about how to do things on her own once she graduated – unless she used non-magical means, of course. It occurred to her that being such a Puckle, in itself, was a kind of narrow-mindedness prohibiting you from learning from others unless they adhered to your own particular views of how they should behave. Hermione would always keep her feet on the ground, it's who she was, but that didn't mean she had to yank everyone else down too.
True independence and difference from her mother wasn't going to be won through bon-bon bullets or cupcake cluster bombs, she saw that now. She'd been fighting to be something different but on the wrong front entirely. It would have to be done by being open-minded, friendly, and non-judgmental. Hermione only wished it didn't seem such a daunting task because she hadn't had any practice at doing that at all. It'd be much easier just to get her mother to swear.
.o0O0o.
Stepping out of the changing room, Harry resisted the urge to shake his leg or pick at the problem fabric just inside his trousers. Magical underwear just wasn't going to happen as far as he was concerned; they were all baggy and had buttons or draw-strings, so it was like wearing small swimming suits under your clothes and probably would've been really uncomfortable unless you were wearing those 'full robes' Madam Malkin had mentioned.
The non-magical version she carried wasn't much better. She only had the one kind, something most like what older wizards would be used to, but they were loose too and had little legs on them. They weren't boxers, but they weren't briefs either; Harry didn't know what to call them except odd. They were uncomfortable too, bunching up in all the most awkward of places and even once you got them sorted out they still felt like they were about to do it again.
Still, he had needed them, and without any muggle money and no means to get around London on his own, Harry supposed they'd have to do. He certainly wasn't going back to Gringotts just to get some, only to end up with them riffling through his memories or yammer on about investments and law until he missed yet another lunch. Opening an account for Hermione today had been bad enough.
His trousers were a different matter. Though they were muggle, they weren't jeans; they looked like khakis... only black. Briefly Harry wondered how the Weasleys had gotten jeans for Ron in the first place, but then felt bad about wondering just how little money the family actually had. They'd been nice enough to take him in when he didn't have anywhere else to go and thinking of them that way was a poor repayment for it.
That was actually the reason he was going to donate his robes from last year in the first place. Ron was taller than him and they had already gotten their things for this year, but there's always next year and Ginny. He could afford to buy new things and donating his stuff meant there were cheaper options available for people who couldn't – as long as he kept his name out of it that is. Things might change for them if Mrs. Weasley did go for that job, but it was still good to help out.
He had decided not to go for green, at least not for his trousers and robes, only for his shirt, which was all of one color, the color Hermione had said would look good on him. Madam Malkin had managed to talk him into a darker forest green to wear later on for robes and trousers once he had gotten used to the idea, just to try it out. She had offered him a discount and he thought it'd be rude to say no.
Everything he had ever worn outside of his Hogwarts clothes had always been drab and colorless – mostly blacks, grays, and whites unless they were Dudley's worn-out or ripped-up cast-offs – so he didn't really have a lot of experience being a person of color. With color, Harry mentally revised; a person who wore color. He didn't know what it was like being a colorful person; that was better.
Even if he wore something like this every day it'd could still probably take him until their first real date to work up to it, and that was still a year away. As much fun as being with Hermione has been, and as well as it's been going, part of it was because this wasn't a date – it was practice.
Even though things had gotten rushed and fuzzy when he asked her out, he was pretty sure this was still not really a date. He had only been asking about Hogsmeade, he was pretty sure of that, so there was no doubt that Hogsmeade was the official start of things – unless he got sick and threw up all over her shoes, in which case he have to hope she felt sorry for him and let him have a mulligan.
Harry looked into the nearby mirror and tried to flatten his hair again as he debated whether he should tuck in his shirt or not. Whenever Aunt Petunia made his cousin Dudley dress nicely she had always made him tuck it in and wear a belt. Madam Malkin didn't carry belts though out of fear people would take them for ties and choke themselves; there were few enough wizards as it was, she said.
"Now there we are," Madam Malkin said appreciatively as she looked up from bagging his things. There were two bags full of clothes; Harry hadn't realized how much he must have been working Mrs. Weasley overtime. "When you asked for muggle things I must say I was rather doubtful, but that's a nice blend of the two."
Harry had to agree, and it seemed functional. The trousers, socks, and odd underthings may have been muggle but they went well with the wizarding shoes and shirt, which was nearly indistinguishable from a muggle one except for not having a brand name or the annoying tag in the back. The robe was basically nothing more than a long black light-weight jacket with pockets. Several pockets. It even had deep pockets inside the sleeves for some reason. He had decided against going with anything with a hood, and if he took the robe off entirely then he could easily blend in with a non-magical crowd.
"That should be you all sorted out," the shopkeeper said as she tallied up the bill again on a small notebook. "Now we can see if the new payment system the goblins had will work. You've got better things to do than spending all day talking to us," she said with a wink before turning to take the bags to the front.
Strangely, Harry didn't feel any embarrassment at that at all. As nice as they were, he really would prefer to spend more time with Hermione. Maybe all the embarrassment before had been a good thing; he supposed it wasn't just clothes you could get used to.
Harry fished out his chequebook and Blood Quill from Ron's borrowed jeans and stuck them in the odd sleeve pocket on one side and put what was left of his pocket money in the other. Besides the entire pocket itself sliding around when he moved his arms, it seemed to work fine. His wand he stuck in one of the normal pockets.
Hermione was already at the register when he turned the corner. The oddly squirmy nervous feeling in his stomach had died down a bit too, mostly leaving the desire to smile in its place, something he didn't see the need to fight since she had one too.
"You look nice," she said, causing him to stop and look down at his clothes again as if they might've changed in the last minute. "You know you don't have to wear green if you don't like it," Hermione said as if unburdening herself of some great weight. "Just because I think it looks nice doesn't mean you have to wear it."
"But I do like it," Harry said honestly.
A little bit of color was fine, it was just having it as an all-over kind of thing that made it seem odd. Hermione seemed on the verge of saying something else but must have figured it'd be silly to press the issue in case he was being honest and ended up leaving it alone.
"I got her all written up here, and got her cheque, but didn't know what to do after that," the shop girl told Madam Malkin.
"Right. Now let's see if these goblins are as clever as they think they are," the older woman said as she pulled out a small silver serving dish and set it on the counter. "So I put that like this," she said as she walked through the new process. "And then I sign her cheque," Madam Malkin paused while she did just that. "And I set it on the tray and..."
Madam Malkin looked around a bit before she pulled out a small wooden-handle stamp with a metal bottom. With a firm hand she pressed down onto the cheque which disappeared in a small puff of smoke.
"Did I do it right?" the slightly wide-eyed shopkeeper asked, as if any of them had ever done this before.
"I think so," Harry said, remembering back when he had sealed his account and that bit of paper had done the same.
"Would we be able to get the cheque back if you didn't?" the curly-haired Marjorie asked curiously.
"Well I wouldn't want to walk all the way down there just to–," Madam Malkin started to say before another puff of smoke cut her off.
Two new pieces of paper had appeared on the tray.
"Let's see," Madam Malkin said as she scrutinized them both, looking back and forth between them as if to spot a difference. "This one's mine, I think, so this other must be yours," she said as she handed Hermione one of the bits of paper. She immediately tucked it into her little cheque ledger for later tallying, if she hadn't done so already.
"Well that was easy, wasn't it?" Madam Malkin said to Marjorie with a smile. "That's much better than walking down to the bank every day after we close up. They should have done this years ago."
She was as happy as a clam as she rung up his purchases and processed his check, though it could've been the amount of money she was making, which he took from the look on Hermione's face to be a lot more than hers was. Maybe it was a good thing they hadn't gone the reimbursement route after all. One weird thing though was that under remaining balance on his bank receipt it said, "A lot: See Overseer Barchoke," which Harry had no intention of doing today at all.
Just as he was thinking about how he'd look carrying his bags around from place to place Hermione had a question. "When you said you'd 'call him,' what exactly did you mean?"
Somehow Harry knew what to do. He turned a bit to the side and looked where he imagined Dobby's head might stand and said, "Dobby!" and the little elf appeared with a pop! He was incredibly dirty. His entire head was almost black and most of the pillowcase he wore was too; it made his bulbous eyes seem to pop out even more.
"What were you doing?" Harry asked curiously, trying to imagine how he could possibly have gotten so dirty so quickly.
"Dobby's cleaning the floo, sir!" Dobby's white teeth seemed to shine as he smiled.
"By climbing up it?" he asked with a grin of his own.
"Of course," Hermione said, and for a second Harry thought she was answering his question. "House-elves can hear their name."
She then turned to a spot near Dobby and called for an elf of her own; Mipsy appeared with another pop! drawing a surprised look from the other elf.
"Good morning, Miss Knee," the chipper little elf said with a smile. "And you know Hairy Pots–sir!" Mipsy cried when she caught sight of him; she looked like she was about to explode with happiness.
The little elf then looked incredibly shy; whether it was from seeing the new people in the shop she didn't know or what might be the first other elf she'd ever seen was hard to tell. Harry didn't know what the etiquette was for something like this but Hermione was willing to take a stab at it.
"Mipsy, this is Dobby, he works for Harry now," she explained to the elves who seemed preoccupied with looking elsewhere and only getting in the odd glance at each other with little smiles. "Dobby, this is Mipsy, she works for Mister Lichfield–"
"–And Miss Knee!" Mipsy added happily.
Harry caught a glimpse of a torn look on Hermione's face that said she wasn't too sure what to think of this new development, though she hid it quickly under one of polite general concern.
"Um – hello," Dobby said with a little wave, even though the two elves were no more than two feet apart. He must've caught sight of just how dirty he was from wiggling his fingers on a nearly black hand. Dobby quickly hid the hand behind his back and looked down embarrassedly, only then to see the rest of what he was wearing.
While Dobby seemed on the verge of panic, Mipsy was chuckling silently behind her hand. With a gesture from her all the soot and grime on Dobby disappeared, leaving him with a recently-scrubbed look like he had gone through the wash. At the look on Dobby's face she couldn't help but giggle and Harry almost joined her. Now he knew why so many people liked to poke fun at two people who might become a couple, they were adorable.
Madam Malkin tapped his shoulder to get his attention.
"You know," she said with a pair of climbing eyebrows and growing smile, "I'm sure I can whip up a matching pair of his-and-hers pillowcases if you're interes–"
"I think that should be up to them," Harry said quickly. He might've bought him but the last thing he was going to do was dictate everything Dobby was going to do from here on out. He deserved to make that choice himself.
"Could you take these to my room for me, Dobby?" Harry asked him as he passed over his new bags of clothes. "And return these to Mrs. Weasley for me?" he said, adding the wadded up clothes he had come in. "After that I need all my old clothes brought here and given to Madam Malkin."
"Yes, sir, Harry Potter, sir. Dobby can do that." Dobby disappeared quickly, perhaps to prove he was a proper house-elf after all.
"You are still willing to take them, aren't you?" Harry asked the woman in question.
"Of course not," Madam Malkin said primly. "I'll make her do it," she said, nodding to Marjorie. "I'll just credit what I get from it as a down payment on the next thing you two buy."
Harry thought that was nice of her – until Hermione had sent off Mipsy to do the same and he realized what she'd done. Madam Malkin had successfully made them have to come back for more robes if they ever wanted to use that bit of money, and then she'd try to continue the cycle. Still, it wasn't like he knew anywhere else to get clothes from, so it was a small price to pay to help others.
Mipsy returned first. Hermione probably had her clothes already set to one side or neatly folded in her trunk from last year; Harry didn't even know where his was, strewn all across the Burrow probably. When both had finally come and gone it was their humans' turn to take their leave.
The day had become slightly overcast, enough to shade their eyes but not enough to threaten rain. Harry nudged Hermione as they set off down the alley, taking her hand as he knocked her a little off balance. She gave him a surprised look at the sudden attack, until she realized what else he'd done, then she rolled her eyes a bit and gained a small smile; she did bump him back though.
"Did you want to visit your furry friend from yesterday," he asked, nodding to the Magical Menagerie.
"I'd like to but…," Hermione had a slightly disappointed look on her face before she brightened. "There is something I'd like to buy though," she said cryptically, as if she'd actually completed the thought. Shrugging off his… girlfriend's? …peculiarity, they angled their way over.
She smiled and squeezed his hand when he opened the door for them. The smell of confined animals filled the space inside, mostly cat and owl with maybe a hint of those little wood-chip shavings people use for hamsters.
"I won't be long," Hermione said before darting towards the back, though he saw her dawdle for a moment and duck down to poke a finger inside a cage he was willing to bet housed a certain squash-faced ginger cat.
Harry, meanwhile, made his way back to the corner they'd been in yesterday. This time he found the small snake lying out enjoying the bit of light its leafy terrarium allowed. It saw him and started to move into the shrubbery when Harry spoke.
"It's alright, I'm a friend," he told it.
The snake folded back along itself and lied there, watching him.
"Could you coil yourself up into a ball again? That was neat."
The black and blotchy-gold – ball python, the card by the tank said – seemed to consider his request for a moment before it started to move again, coiling its body around its head until it became quite compact.
"The shopkeeper had no idea what 'hypoallergenic' meant," Hermione said, walking up to him carrying a wicker basket.
"I don't think I know what 'hypoallergenic' means," Harry said, giving the basket a curious look. "Going on a picnic?"
"Maybe later," she said with a smile that was mix of 'I just outsmarted you' and 'I'm going to hold you to that' springing onto her face. "It means 'unlikely to cause an allergic reaction,' because apparently my mother's allergic to all things cute and cuddly."
"Well you should've known that," Harry said, feeling the desire to poke back a bit.
Hermione gave him a look that warned he was getting closer to dangerous territory.
"It must be the reason you two don't get on," he said with a shrug.
Her look turned into one where she couldn't understand a thing that just happened; it was as if he'd suddenly grown antlers and spouted gibberish. He grinned and felt a bit of heat in his cheeks as he tried to look innocent. For a girl who was usually a step ahead of him on everything, Harry was starting to like moments like these.
"I don't think I've ever been called either before," Hermione said finally, still looking at him like he was getting ready to hit her.
"I didn't call you 'Either,'" he couldn't resist saying, "I called you–"
"–This one's yours," she cut in quickly as she thrust the basket into his arms. She was a little red-faced from embarrassment with a look that said she'd had quite enough of that nonsense, even if it wasn't unwelcome. Harry tried to hide his smile but wasn't making much headway at it.
She was obviously unused to getting a compliment. 'Cute' might be a matter of opinion but he supposed he couldn't really say she was 'cuddly' until he had experienced it for himself. He had liked her hugs though, so 'huggable' was definitely an adjective for her.
"It's mine?" he asked, giving her the conversational way out.
"Well, I should say it's Dobby's, because I bought it for him," she explained. "I didn't know what you were doing for bedding, but he should have more than a pallet on the floor to sleep on."
"Oh, thank you," Harry said. "Molly said something about having a bassinet but after she put him in a high chair for dinner I thought it might be going a bit too far."
"Well ideally, I'd like to find them little beds to sleep in but I doubt I'll ever find them."
"How much do I owe you?" he asked, wondering if he could get to the pouch of money in the sleeve pocket with the hand on that side.
"You owe me nothing," Hermione said with the look saying she'd outsmarted him again. "This is a gift from me to him; it has nothing to do with you at all. I got Mipsy one as well, but Dobby didn't show up when I called him," she finished curiously.
"Well, since it has nothing to do with me…" Harry said as he handed her back the basket. "I'll let you give it to – Dobby!"
Dobby's eyes slowly grew and his mouth threatened to hit the floor as Hermione explained what she had gotten him. The excitement was quickly checked though with a furtive glance Harry's way and he started to deflate again, so he decided to put his mind at rest.
"Now Dobby, this has nothing to do with me," he said, echoing Hermione's words from earlier. "This is up to you, so if you want it you can have it."
Dobby's reaction was immediate; he raced to hug Hermione's leg so fast he almost caused her to fall over. A few of the animals became disturbed by the sudden noise and movement that Harry thought the shopkeeper might throw them out. He didn't, but he did start watching them in any case.
Even when Dobby had left and the animals quieted down again Hermione still looked frazzled; her hair looking like she'd just been put through a tiny tornado. Who would've thought such a small being could be one giant explosion of emotions ready to go off? They both would have to be careful about giving any house-elf a present in the future if this was anything to go on.
After a moment, Hermione seemed to pull herself back together; her eyes flickered back and forth between him and the terrarium.
"Harry, I was curious about what happened in here yesterday," she said seriously before lowering her voice. "About you and the snake."
"What about it?" he asked, glancing over to the leafy enclosure again. The python had hidden itself again. "Where did you go?"
"Let'ssss gooo…" Hermione said quickly, making an elongated hissing sound like air escaping from a tire as she pulled him towards the door and gave the shopkeeper a bit of a panicked look. It wasn't until they were outside again that he was able to ask her about it.
"What's wrong?" he asked confused.
"The shopkeeper was watching us, Harry," she said with her voice pitched low so as not to be heard over the now–increasing traffic in the alley.
"So?" he asked, lowering his voice to match hers as she purposefully led them to another shop.
"So? What did you say to the snake?" she asked, as if that had anything to do with it.
"I asked him where he went," he said. "You heard me."
"No, Harry, I didn't. That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Hermione explained. "Follow me," she said, darting off to Flourish and Blotts. Wondering what he could have possibly stepped in this time, Harry followed along behind her.
The bookstore was almost deserted, though a sign saying no refunds would be given on any of Lockhart's books might've been the cause for that, or the presence of Lockhart himself. The shopkeeper was shooting glowering looks at the man as if he was the jailer tasked to make sure his troublesome charge didn't escape.
There was a woman there too, dressed all in green with rhinestone studded glasses, her blonde hair in elaborate curls; Harry wondered if she was Lockhart's wife. Whoever it was, their would-be professor didn't seem happy to see her. He had a frustrated look on his face like he wanted to disappear on the spot.
If she was his wife, she probably wasn't happy about the bad press he'd gotten. Harry decided that it'd be best to avoid them and slipped back through the shelves to search for Hermione. He found her nestled in the back corner of the store, her nose predictably stuck in a book.
'When there's trouble, go to the library,' Harry thought, both frustrated and amused at his girlfriend's actions. 'And if you don't have one, use the bookstore.'
"Hermione, could you please just tell me what's going on?" he asked. "What are you reading?"
"It's Hogwarts, a History," she said, glancing up at him. "I know Bagshot wrote it – so it's shoddy at best – but it's the only place I knew where to look," Hermione explained. "Look there," she said, passing him the book.
It was turned to a page very near the front, one corner of which was given over to a picture of an old, gaunt, monkey-faced wizard with a long thin beard and labeled Salazar Slytherin.
"Hermione, why am I looking at this?" he asked, growing increasingly agitated at the number of times Slytherin House was being mentioned around him.
"It's right here, Harry," she said, pointing to one particular passage as Hermione tried to angle herself so she could look in every direction at once. "One reason Salazar Slytherin is so famous is because he's a Parselmouth," she explained, almost reciting the passage verbatim. "He could speak to snakes. That's why the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent."
"So why should I care if that old bigot could do it?" he asked defensively. "There must be loads of people who can."
"No, Harry, they can't. I think to anyone who can't do the same it'd come out completely indecipherable – all I heard was a harsh hissing a moment ago," she said quietly, her eyes darting around nervously. "It's not a very common gift and if what I've read is anything to go on, it's one that people really really don't like."
"Why? It's just talking to an animal, how can it be bad? And why should I care what they think anyway?" he asked, venting a little of the frustration he felt.
It felt better raging against some anonymous Them than against Hermione. Even if he didn't want to talk about this for some reason he didn't quite understand, he knew she was only doing it because she thought it important. He had pushed her and Ron about Snape and the Stone often enough last year though that the least he could do was hear her out.
"Because virtually all the Parselmouths we know about – all the ones Bagshot mentions, that is – have been very bad people in some way," Hermione explained. "Herpo the Foul with his basilisk breeding and fondness for magically made plagues, Salazar Slytherin with his Blood Purist nonsense and Chamber of Secrets; Paracelsus seems to be the only decent person to ever have it – but even then he had to sleep with a sword under his pillow every night, though that could have been because he was a noted Alchemist, and we've seen how people react to them," she said with a vexed look on her face.
"Even today that perception persists," she continued. "Some say it's the mark of a dark wizard because–," Hermione paused to strengthen her resolve, "because V–Voldemort was known for it."
She had said it; she said the word that focused his frustration into anger, even hate. Voldemort. The fact she said the name was an amazing feat in itself since no one ever did and would wince and cower whenever they heard it.
That was why he was so uncomfortable with all things Slytherin, he knew that now. Voldemort had been one of them. He had led a whole host of them on a murderous rampage only ending with his parents' deaths. And now Draco Malfoy, with his goons – Crabbe and Goyle – and probably their parents and all their friends were just the same, waiting for any excuse to start things up again.
Telling her he'd almost been put in Slytherin had been a private thing, and making a slight joke of it once had been somewhat uncomfortable. Even thinking his grandparents might possibly have been in the House was only grudgingly acceptable, since he couldn't change it if it was true, but being even the tiniest bit like Voldemort was repellent. And it was clear to see where she was going with this.
Thanks to those Indiana Potter stories Dumbledore had to have a hand in, people already had ridiculous notions about him. Lichfield had hinted that more of what his actual life had been like was sure to become public at some point, and if this came out too… How long would it be before 'Oh, what a troubled life he's had,' became 'Kill him before he goes bad and kills us all!'?
"He was nothing more than a murderer," Harry said bitterly. "I'm nothing like him."
"Of course you're not, Harry; I wouldn't be here if you were," Hermione said supportively. "How you choose to act says more about you than any ability you may have. That's something these wizards have refused to learn. Still," she added with a bit of a pained look on her face, "it's not necessarily something I'd go around talking about."
"That's rich, coming from you," Harry said, relaxing a bit as he gained a bit of a sardonic smile. "Miss 'Look-At-Me-I'm-A-Muggleborn-And-Best-At-Everything.'"
"People of non-magical heritage are much a more prevalent and visible segment of society," Hermione said primly, "or so I was led to believe. Someone has to put themselves forward and stop backing down to the discrimination or it will never change. I thought I'd get more support from the teachers though," she said with the vexed expression back on her face.
"They probably think it builds character," Harry said. "My cousin Dudley's school, Smeltings, gives everyone sticks to beat each other up with when no one's looking."
"That's barbaric. I wouldn't say I'm the best at everything though," she continued in the same stilted manner. "Parselmouths are supposed to be very good kissers – but I don't know if it's true."
Harry's brain suddenly stopped.
"You need your books," Hermione observed, placing the borrowed book back on the shelf and departing at once.
It took more than a moment for his brain to re-engage and by then she was long gone. Whether she meant it as a joke or not, he certainly wasn't going to find out standing where he was. He made his way towards the front of the shop again looking for her, all bad thoughts of being a Parselmouth having completely disappeared.
Harry found her again at the front counter, where she smiled and promptly handed him a bag containing his books. As much as he would have really enjoyed continuing their last conversation, he couldn't help but be distracted by two looks coming from Gilderoy Lockhart and his quill-carrying wife. She must've been in mid-dictation because this acid green quill was zooming around on a nearby parchment before she picked it up and gave Harry the most eager predatory look that put her husband's from yesterday to shame.
The look Lockhart himself was giving him wasn't nearly so pleasant. As he watched, Lockhart's peacock quill quickly became a bent and broken mass as the man's hands seemed to itch to get a hold of Harry's neck. Hermione noticed the looks too and promptly took his arm and walked quickly out of the shop. Maybe with all the negative publicity Lockhart would get sacked before the term even started, because he certainly didn't want to go the entire year with those kinds of looks boring into his back.
.o0O0o.
It was a bit of a gamble – one which implied things she didn't know if she was ready to carry through with just yet – but it seemed to have paid off. That particular rough spot had been addressed and Hermione didn't think it could have gone any better, given the circumstances. Ever since Harry had mentioned talking to a snake in his letter she had wanted to address the issue but had gotten distracted.
When she remembered she'd thought it best to bring it up in person just in case she had misunderstood; snakes are typically regarded as being deaf to airborne sounds after all since the number and variety of what they could hear is so limited as to be almost nonexistent. She didn't think it'd be like dousing herself in petrol and lighting herself on fire though. Harry would never hurt her in a million years, she knew that; if things had gone horribly wrong it only would've been her hopes for a romantic relationship that went up in smoke, not really her.
It was in a bid to salvage things by dousing the righteous hatred she'd conjured by mentioning the connection to Voldemort that lead her to make up the bit about Parseltongue and kissing in the first place. It made an illogical kind of sense if you didn't think about it, working off a person's ignorance and desire to believe more than anything else.
While some can make hissing sounds, snakes use their tongues to collect chemical traces from the air to detect what's around them, not for communication, but while Harry obviously lacked the same biology, that explanation also failed to account for the existence of Parseltongue in the first place. Was it a magically based form of vocal communication encoding what Harry wanted to say into something the snake could understand? That seemed to be the case since it created auditory sounds, but was it unidirectional – perhaps taking the form of him giving commands or putting it into a kind of trance and turning it into an automaton – or was there a degree of interaction and freedom involved?
Harry said he'd asked it a question, which implies there's some sort of interaction taking place, but she hadn't seen enough to tell if that was actually the case and certainly wasn't going to have them stick around to find out. If only the ability wasn't such a taboo subject some of these answers might've been readily available, but as it was they probably wouldn't find anything about it outside of the Restricted Section of the school library, or that dodgy side street she certainly wasn't going down again.
Even with the heightened expectations she'd taken on by saying what she did, Hermione was glad Harry believed it; she didn't wanted this day ruined. He'd been… remarkably affectionate today, more so than she'd thought possible given all the things that could've gone wrong with his upbringing, though she supposed completely normal people were possible even when brought up in abnormal situations. Just look at her: she had a cartoon father and a robot mother but she had turned out alright.
Avoiding things that could ruin the day was also the reason she had spirited him out of the bookstore before "professor" Lockhart or that woman could do anything to Harry. Her gamble had paid dividends when they left so quickly that Harry never had time to realize that she had paid for his new school books herself.
She'd heard that money was the predominate source of relationship issues and Hermione was determined not to fall victim to any of those potential pitfalls. He didn't need to buy her interest or approval through gifts or anything of the sort and certainly didn't need to spend money to show affection, though he seemed to be developing a sense of that on his own, thankfully.
She was still looking for ways to slip the money Harry had given her back into his pocket though. Even if he was unaware it happened, she'd know and it would reinforce her stance that she was still an independent person; just because they were together didn't change that. She supposed the easiest thing would be to put it directly into his pocket again once the bank started reissuing currency, but if she could find other ways to do it she would.
Feeling that a distraction from her distraction would be best, she lead them back by Madam Malkin's until they reached the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, where the brand new Nimbus 2001 was on display. Harry was almost instantly engrossed with reading the description of its handling, performance, and various features while she was more curious about why the broom had been made in the first place.
It seemed rather silly to her for them to release a new model which outstripped the one they had released just the year before. The wizarding world was a tiny place, compared non-magical one that is, so there can't be many people with enough disposable income to constantly acquire the latest model. Were they trying to create a secondary market of slightly used older brooms or had the 2000 model simply been rushed into production before it was ready and the 2001 was what they'd been shooting for?
Hermione didn't mention any of these thoughts to Harry though and just let him admire the craftsmanship of the broom in front of him. She knew he loved the one he had and wouldn't be looking to change; she didn't want to detract from that. The look on his face when he flew said it was probably his dearest possession – aside from Hedwig, and now Dobby – which he classified as family and not possessions at all, which was good. It didn't mean he couldn't look though, especially if it alleviated the 'you just promised to kiss him' tension she felt.
Something else in the shop interested her much more than the broom did: it was curly-haired Marjorie chatting up the young man behind the counter. Hermione looked at her watch and saw they still had a good bit of time before lunch; the older girl must have "gotten lost" on the way back to work after dropping off their robes at the second hand store and "come in for directions."
Hermione decided to try an experiment with a new 'friendly ribbing' kind of chastisement so she loosened her hold on Harry's arm and slowly slipped back a bit so he wouldn't see what she was doing, and then waved inside to get their attention. It was the shaggy-haired shop attendant who saw her; he smiled and motioned inside to say they were open. Instead she pointed at Marjorie.
After a few quick words it was the girl's turn to see what was going on, and to chuckle at seeing them there. Hermione tapped her watch and sent the older girl a slightly exaggerated look that said 'shouldn't you be at work?' while shaking her finger at her as if to scold her. Inside the shop, Marjorie laughed, then spun around, took the bloke by the face and kissed him on the lips! While the man stood there looking stunned, the curly-haired girl turned back to her with a look daring her to do the same.
"I just remembered," Hermione said, red-faced and thankful Harry hadn't seen them. "We need to get Potions supplies." She took his arm, quickly leading them away from the shop and the laughter she was sure was happening inside.
The man at the potions supply shop already had prepackaged kits prepared and was much more versed in the new payment system so it was no time at all before Harry was distracted by yet another shiny thing at the shop next door. Hermione was beginning to wonder if the male of their species was more like cats than anyone had reckoned – it would certainly explain her father constantly getting distracted with shiny things or wandering off when bored. The only redeeming part of this she could see was this time Harry was distracted by something educational.
"What do you think, Hermione?" Harry asked as he flashed those green eyes at her.
She'd been right, the green shirt did look good on him, and they brought out his eyes, but that made them all the more distracting when she needed her wits about her to maneuver through the conversation. She was not going to let him buy a moving model of the galaxy for her, regardless of how pretty it was or how much she'd enjoy it; Grangers pay their own way and it was much too expensive.
"That's very expensive," Hermione said, making a show of her disapproval of the price.
Hermione had found that Harry was much more slippery when it came to evading her reasoning – or just disregarding it, in some cases last year – if she detailed her objections right off the bat. Now they were together she'd decided to turn things around and give a tiny bit of resistance at first so she could hear some of his thoughts and then go about getting him to see the other side a little bit at a time.
While it made for a much longer process than simply beating him over the head until he saw sense, she was not her mother. Besides, she liked talking to him about intelligent things. The difficulty here though was how did she get him to be frugal and safeguard the money his parents had passed on to him, without guilting him into it, while also not stepping on any desire to explore their new world?
"Yeah, but look at it," Harry said as he gave the galaxy he'd found in a large glass ball a little poke, his eyes alight the way Ron's would be for a new broom or Lavender's would be for a cute pair of shoes. "It's all the Astronomy we'd ever need right here. Imagine all the extra studying you could do if we dropped it," he said slyly, as if he were dangling a little treat in front of her.
"Astronomy is one of our core classes," Hermione said, choosing to take the conversational tangent. "We can add classes starting in Third Year, but we can't drop them until after we sit our tests in Fifth. Besides, it's one of the most practical classes we have," she said, adding extra weight to her implied 'even if you buy it for yourself it still won't get you anywhere' argument.
"Practical?" he asked, finally tearing himself away from the globe in order to give her an odd look. "What's practical about spending half the night freezing while trying to learn something I'll never use?"
Instantly the image of the two of them spending the evening snuggled up in a blanket while looking at the stars popped into her mind. She quickly discarded it though; she was not going to have promised or implied physical contact as the basis of their relationship – that sort of thing wouldn't be healthy for either of them. They were friends who enjoyed spending time together in a more intimate way than was purely platonic; what followed should be in the same vein and not something overtly sexual.
"Do you know what you're going to do once you graduate?" she asked, choosing to fight slyness and bribery with wit and intelligence to see which came out on top.
"You mean besides having a goblin and a lawyer yammer my ear off about investments until I'm ready to scream?" Harry countered; reminding her precisely what was in store in his future.
"Yes," she said, doubling down on her question despite the huge hole he just knocked in her argument. There was no way Harry would be content just to lie around all day with nothing to do; he'd go mental by the end of the week. She might be able to use that future to prove her point though.
"Er – I haven't thought about it," Harry said, flattening his hair as he gave it a bit of thought. "Being an Auror sounds interesting, but so does Curse-Breaking, and I can't deny a Litigator is useful too."
Hermione thought it odd he hadn't immediately mentioned Quidditch, but put that aside for later and focused instead on the logical case she wanted to make.
"And do you know if any of those require knowledge of potions for curing disease or detecting poison? Or even if you need to know which plants are magical, or when those plants would be at their best for use as ingredients for any potion you need to make?"
"How is Astronomy supposed to help with that?" Harry asked.
"I thought you said you'd been studying," she replied; after all, the reason for it was obvious.
"I have been studying, but I haven't read anything like that. We don't even have a textbook for Astronomy," he reminded her.
"It's in the introductory chapter to One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, it talks all about the sympathies magical plants have to different celestial bodies and how they influence the magical properties they have," Hermione explained. "That's why we take Astronomy in the first place, so we can tell when they're at their peak when we're out on our own."
"Oh," Harry said, probably realizing just now why they were also taking Herbology if they didn't plan to have a garden. "That actually makes sense."
"And that's just the tip of the iceberg," she smiled as she led him away to the ice cream parlor they'd seen the day before. "Sympathies go much deeper than that, they're actually based an old hermetic idea..."
Things couldn't have gotten better for Hermione! She had gotten him to listen to her, be frugal with his money, actually see the point of a class he had completely written off, and interested in the underlying mechanics involved. And now they were chatting about it while eating ice cream and holding hands like a legitimate couple – and he didn't look bored at all – and he hadn't even noticed that she had paid!
No matter what happened at the Hopefuls meeting after this, one thing was absolutely clear – this was definitely a date. Nothing could dampen her spirits after that. Even Lichfield walking by and tapping his watch, only to stick his tongue out at her when she covertly shooed him away had seemed comical; at least he was wearing proper clothes again.
When she had stretched things out as long as she thought she could without making them late, she finally walked with him the short way back to the Leaky Cauldron still hand-in-hand. That wonderfully bubbly feeling lasted a frightfully short time however as the fireplace flared almost as soon as they arrived. She felt her hand leave his as one of the few people she'd seriously begun to detest walked out. Pansy Parkinson had arrived.
.o0O0o.
AN: The part fleshing out Hermione's mother is a little more of a giveaway if you've actually met or interacted with people with this particular condition, though hers is an admittedly exaggerated case since we only ever see people talking about her. An unnamed Guest was the first to peg what I was going for back in January 2015, so kudos to you, whoever you are.
I might be slightly stretching things a bit by having Hermione "not have the words" to describe her mother, but the condition only did become a standard diagnosis in 1992 (which has since been reclassified) even though the term was popularized in the very early 80s. Even today people (like my best friend) can go through much of their life without knowing what it is about them that makes them the way they are. Plus, it let me put Doctor Robotnik in the chapter title, and how could I pass up such a timely reference to Sonic the Hedgehog?
Also, since I've gotten a couple of comments on this, not everything people say in this is supposed to be taken literally, even my original characters. The "1,000 students" thing is just a reference to what Rowling said passed off as a tongue-in-cheek exaggeration.
As always, thanks for reading.