Hermione Granger and the Displaced Sorting

Harry Potter Fanfiction

Chapter 3

A/N: This is going to be a running author's note, but if you read on and enjoy this story, make sure to have my username saved in case my account is deleted. I post on AO3 and Wattpad as well under the same name.

I'm not sure how massive this story is going to be, but I'm thinking massive. Already I've had to split the 2nd chapter in my outline into two chunks, and, like the first book, I've got a thirty-chapter rough outline that I already knew was wishful thinking. My wish list for this book is a mile long, so hold onto your seats, kiddos. It's going to be a wild ride.

September 1st, 1992

When McGonagall returned from handing out the tests to the other professors, her parents and Flitwick had finished their tea and were all laughing as Hermione used her wand to make the saucers all dance around.

Hermione's only warning was a punctuating gasp that had her concentration breaking, along with the porcelain china. "Oh no! I'm so sorry!"

"Not at all, Miss Granger," Flitwick reassured, waving his wand and casting a squeaky reparo charm. "McGonagall, welcome back. We figured we would get the charms portion of the practical out of the way, and as you can see, it might not be a dancing pineapple, but it certainly demonstrated strong proficiency."

McGonagall's lips hung open, not much, but enough to make it obvious that she was shook by what she'd seen. "Miss Granger, did you just control three separate saucers together?"

"Um, yes?"

Finally, McGonagall's shock eased away in time with her brow raising. "I think we'll move onto the transfiguration portion then. And I will start by telling you that your teacups are actually transfigured rats."

Her dad spluttered the sip he took of his refill before staring down at the delicate cup. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

McGonagall smiled in earnest this time before pulling her wand and approaching. "You will be reversing the transfigurationyou're your exam. The spell is reparifarge." She demonstrated as she tapped the cup with careful, almost exaggerated wand movements, especially considering how Flitwick had been teaching her the initial full movements, and then working with her to shave them down to the fastest, most economical swishes and flicks as possible. Someone with as much experience as a master in her field wouldn't need such heavy-handed wand-waving.

Hermione straightened. She was teaching her, seeing if she could pick it up.

"That's a second-year spell," Flitwick protested.

"Is it, Filius?" McGonagall asked, casting him a heavy, loaded stare. "Are you saying you don't already know that she'll somehow be able to perform any first-year transfiguration I could pose to her despite not having used a wand until today?"

While they were having their silent discussion, Hermione was trying to mimic the moves while mouthing the word.

It would've been much more helpful to switch to her metavision so she could study the direction of magic, the patterns, the exact hue of the energy. She'd picked up that habit this summer, cheating with her visiomagus abilities to learn faster, and she'd become too reliant on it. Switching vision to suddenly have blindingly white glowing eyes in the middle of class wasn't something she'd be able to do.

"Can—" Hermione trailed off, remembering they'd been having a discussion of looks. She glanced at them, but luckily, McGonagall didn't seem to be upset with her. "Sorry, professor."

"No, go ahead, Miss Granger."

"Would it be okay for you to show me the movements again?"

"Certainly. We promised ten minutes of instruction for you to learn and practice. And you'd only have to show aptitude. If it seems to us like you'll pick up the skills quickly, then you will be allowed in with the second years with either tutors or remedial lessons blocked off during your professors' office hours."

At the end of the instruction, Hermione was able to get the cup to regain its fur—something that had her parents turning a little green. She would've too if she'd put thought into the fact that she'd drank from a rat, but she was too excited about the progress she'd made.

"That will be all, Miss Granger. You passed with an outstanding."

"Out…outstanding? But I didn't get the rat back."

"No, but as Professor Flitwick mentioned, this was a second-year spell. You'll have all year to learn it."

Hermione smiled, even as she inwardly vowed to herself to not just copy things using her metavision. She wanted to understand and apply the information she gained from that. She could see all the spells she wanted that way, but if she sought patterns, drew conclusions…well, then she'd truly understand more about magic. And maybe she wouldn't be caught on unsure ground like just now.

"Two of your practical exams finished, Tootsie! Go get 'em," her dad cheered.

"Quite," a low, melodic voice drawled. ". If we are done cheering, then, we will get started right away. I am Professor Snape. My titles include potioneer official, master of potions, and a license to trade in Class B and dangerous substances, and yet I teach students that could never hope to achieve the ability to brew their own hangover potion when they inevitably become depressed with their low lot in life."

Hermione's eyes were round, and she was speechless. Her parents weren't much better.

"I beg your pardon," her mum began, puffing up.

"You can beg all you want, but a pardon is not something I'm in the habit of giving."

"No, whether you think teaching is below your abilities or not," her mum continued, only getting more riled up. "You are here. So you can very well stiff-upper lip your way to some politeness, otherwise you have no business being here shaping the minds of our future. The worst kind of man holds a grim outlook on the future, and yet does not to change what he can see, and that would be you, Mister Snape if you treat all your students this way. How many, I wonder, have become disillusioned by the arts of potion-making because of your dour attitude?"

Hermione's jaw had dropped at her purposeful snubbing of his title, and it hadn't recovered from there, especially since her mum was left red-faced and panting by the end—the same woman that refused to lose her composure in public when a car drenched her head to toe in muddle puddle water.

"Hm," Professor Snape replied, dispassionately. He held out a book to Hermione. "Forgive me," he continued in a voice that hadn't changed a bit in tone. "Of course I will endeavor to show a sun-shinier disposition to encourage more dunder-headed fools into the subtle, exact art of potion-making so that more accidents and fatalities can occur from people shopping at apothecaries and potion's shops from fools that thought they could skirt by with their remedial abilities."

Her mother glared at him. He stared back.

Neither backed down, and neither seemed to win, but when he addressed Hermione again, he was missing a good dose of the snide sarcasm. "Here is your text, Miss Granger. You will have exactly thirty minutes to brew the wide-eye potion. If I see you making a mistake, I will not correct you—"

"Why not?" her mum interrupted.

Fire in his eyes, Snape whirled. "Because, Mrs. Granger, potions can be recovered, and if she is half as smart as Professor Flitwick has implied, then it will be a second chance to redeem herself. If she's paying attention and following the instructions—page one hundred and four, Miss Granger—" he added as an aside when he saw Hermione searching the index for the right recipe, before carrying on smoothly. "Then she might be able to pass acceptably instead of failing miserably. If that is all for now, Mrs. Granger?"

Her mother huffed and narrowed her eyes, but Hermione interrupted what she'd been about to say next. "Oh, that's it?"

Professor Snape looked at her—really looked at her—with his brow arched. "You would do well not to overestimate your ability to brew. Arrogance is as equally detrimental as timidity."

"Oh, of course, I just. Right." Hermione trailed off, realizing it would probably be best to keep the experimentations with potions at home from their knowledge if Flitwick hadn't mentioned his tutoring her all summer.

Snape's other brow rose to join its twin. "You may begin."

Throughout the duration, he hovered just beyond her peripherals, much to her mother's huffing and annoyance.

McGonagall had moved them back over to the far table, the Slytherin one. Occasionally she heard Flitwick and even a resigned McGonagall reassuring her parents that Snape was good at his job and that students were lucky to have that knowledge at their fingertips.

To which her mum had quipped, "So much for having the knowledge at their fingertips if he doesn't willingly part with it when he's supposed to be teaching. I bet Richard could do a better job—"

"Oh, look," Flitwick interrupted. "That's the right color. Your daughter's doing swell."

She stoppered the potion in the vial Snape provided and handed it to him. He examined the viscosity, held it up to the light to check the color, and removed the lid to sniff it. After all the showmanship of a fine-wine critic, he said simply, "You're not a complete lost cause, Miss Granger. Acceptable."

And with that he swept from the hall.

"Ha! That's right!" her mum burst out. "I knew you could do it, sweetie!"

"Mum," Hermione whinged, her cheeks warm.

"Defense against the dark arts now," McGonagall informed. "And then a spot of flying."

The dread returned to Hermione then, her nerves flaring up. In all the excitement, she'd forgotten she'd have to mount a broom.

"Hello, all. I am Gilderoy Lockhart, at your service!" called a man with a perfect smile and windswept hair. "I hear we have an unusual case today."

Hermione paused, her memory sparking at the man's name for some reason.

"I've got a busy day tomorrow, and I'm in the process of preparing a stack of autographed pictures of—who else—me! So, I'll have you do a spell or two, and then we can both be on our way. What do you say?"

"Mr. Lockhart," McGonagall chided. "It's your responsibility to put the students first. It is your decision that will affect Miss Granger's career path."

"Ah, but her essay on how to deal with gytrash and hags was absolutely superb. Someone that can write that knowledgeably on a subject must be an expert." He paused, his bright smile spreading. "I'd know. I'm an author, myself."

Hermione snapped her fingers. "Oh, that's who you are. You wrote all those books on the second-year supply list."

Lockhart bobbed his head and smirked. "Ah, a fan. Yes, I am indeed the one on your booklist."

"Right," her father snapped his fingers. "You're like all those professors at university who publish a book, charge two hundred pounds for it, and then make their students purchase it."

Hermione blinked, recalling that, yes, Lockhart's monopoly of the second-year supply list had seemed a bit odd to her.

"Ah, but my books are accurate, exciting, and educational," Lockhart replied, casting another smile at her dad this time.

"Sure, of course. Let's see what you've got then," her dad conceded, resting his back against the table behind him.

"Ah, perhaps you misunderstand, but it's your daughter that will be tested, and we will commence now. Miss Granger, stand up, wand aloft like this. Very good. Now, I think a simple expelliarmus will do—"

"What?" McGonagall protested. "That's hardly enough to gauge—"

"Expelliarmus," Hermione called, holding her hand out to catch Lockhart's wand.

Lockhart gave a nervous laugh before snatching the wand back. "Excellent marks, Miss, uh…"

"Granger."

"Of course. My job here is done. Now, if you'll excuse me. I have some photographs to sign."

McGonagall's expression pinched, but when she turned and saw Hermione, she smoothed it out. "While normally defense would've been your biggest practical exam, I think the adept and ease of your disarming spell speaks for itself. That just leaves flying now."

Hermione closed her eyes and tried to tune out the snickers coming from her dad. "Alright," she whispered.

It went as horribly as she expected.

"It's alright, Miss Granger. You'll be able to take that one class with the first years. It's an abbreviated course, so it won't impede you from taking your other periods with the second years. Congratulations."

Hermione jumped up, not even caring that she'd have to get on a broom again. "Yes!"

She'd done it. She was going to be joining as a second-year student.

McGonagall smiled. "Professor Flitwick and you worked hard on this."

"Yes, we—" Hermione's eyes bugged out.

"As I suspected." McGonagall cast a shrewd look at her colleague but softened her expression when she saw Hermione's fear. "Your secret, for whatever reason you think you need it, is safe with me. Now, make sure to treat yourself while you're in Diagon Alley picking up your second-year materials. You've earned it."

Hermione all but floated out of the castle, back across the wooden, cloister bridge, and to the apparition point.

With a pop, they were in the bustling streets of Diagon Alley, teeming with young students preparing for the start of the school year. Street vendors hawked their wares and sold foods with interesting names like hopping hoagie and pixie bites. Things whizzed overhead through the air as shop owners sent packages this way and that.

Her mum scoffed inside the bookstore. "Do you really need all of the man's books? For one class? The only other book on this list is the Standard Book of Spells – Year Two."

Her dad had made a similar joke after meeting the man, and Hermione tilted her head in thought, trying to replay meeting him. He'd seemed rather busy, and McGonagall hadn't treated him with the same respect that she'd shown her other colleagues.

At the till, the shopkeeper smiled at them as he started to tally their purchases, reading aloud the titles and prices as a fancy, plumed quill jotted down his words on his own until they were handed a handwritten—well, figuratively speaking—receipt of parchment paper after he whispered, "Geminio," and duplicated it to have a copy for his records.

"You know," the owner began, tucking their copy inside the cover of the top book on her stack. And what a stack it was. Instead of ice cream, she'd decided to treat herself to extra time in the bookstore. "A book lover like you, you should've come one day later. You'd have been able to meet the author. Gilderoy Lockhart is having a book signing here tomorrow."

"How unfortunate," Mum gushed with a fake grin. "That's too bad, dear."

Hermione, catching on that there was something that the adults were picking up that she hadn't, just shrugged. "It's okay, sir. The books are the important part, right? What is the author's name going to add when the real value is in the knowledge they impart on us with their words?"

The man grinned at her parents. "You've got a sharp one there. Good day."

Outside, they caught sight of Flitwick standing on a bench seat across the way, waving at them while four cups of ice cream floated behind him. As they moved to join him, she saw several student-aged children wave at him as they passed. He was well-liked.

When they reached him, he climbed down. "I know you decided to treat yourself with books for passing your exams, but I thought you could do with something sweet, too."

"Oh," her mum wavered. "I don't know. That's a lot of sugar."

"No sugar, Emma. Just magic," Flitwick replied without missing a beat, winking at her behind her mum's back when she conceded. Her dad caught the action and laughed but didn't rat them out. It was perfect.