a/n: These are a series of drabbles that fill in the blanks from the books and beyond that weren't written and doing so from a Harmony perspective. This is from the HMS Harmony 2023 Bingo event. Each chapter is inspired by a milestone prompt.
Warnings: This series will contain mentions of war, a miscarriage, and all the ups and down of a lifetime together. It will split from canon in the DH timeframe and go on to post-hogwarts with Harry/Hermione pairing.
HMS Harmony Milestone Bingo. Prompt: First Hogwarts' Class
Chapter 1: Expectations
Harry tossed and turned in his four-poster bed. He couldn't sleep. There was too much to think about. All the things he experienced his first day at Hogwarts, it still didn't feel real. Like he was meant to wake up from a dream and find himself in his cupboard under the stairs. He didn't want to fall asleep out of fear that he would wake up to that reality. Then there were classes to worry about. They found their class schedules neatly presented on their trunks when they got to their dorm rooms. That summer he had flipped through his books he picked up at Diagon Alley with Hagrid, but he wasn't sure he understood most of it. It was a world apart from everything he had studied in primary school so far. He was decent at math, he did alright in English. Science was hit and miss depending on the subject. He spent most of his last year worrying about his Key Stage 2 exams. It had been hard to focus on school work when he was hungry all the time, when he was bullied over his clothes not fitting, or when he was expected to do the house work instead of studying. Now none of it mattered. All the subjects on his schedule were foreign to him. Even the history class. It wasn't the history he was taught that was for sure. He read about Merlin in English Literature, not from an historical perspective. He tossed again. He caught sight of Ron. His new friend was out. Ron wasn't worried. Why would he be? He grew up at knowing about these subjects if not being taught the basics already.
Giving up on sleep, he got out of bed. Maybe he should read the first chapter in his transfigurations book. At least he'd know the words used in their first class. Carefully opening the trunk, he found A Beginner's Guide to Transfigurations. He was certainly a beginner. The book was realistic in its expectations. Looking around, as much as he was jealous Ron was sleeping so well, Harry didn't want to wake him. He needed some light. The common room had been packed by the time the first years had finished the tour of the castle. There was a huge chair next to the fire he really wanted to sit in, but it had been occupied all night. Guessing it had cleared out by now, he headed for the stairs.
He was surprised to see all the torches were lit. He wondered if they just always burned or did someone need to put them out. Then he saw a person was in the chair he had been hoping to try out. It was the girl from the train. She had known more about him then he did. It felt like everyone knew more about him. That brought out some frustration. He didn't know where to channel that frustration. Certainly the Dursleys should bear the brunt. They knew all about his parents and had been lying to him his entire life. Hermione had been sorted into the same house. Harry figured that meant they had some things in common. From what he understood about the sorting anyway. Maybe she could help him. Walking up to her, he saw she was reading the same book but was nearly half way through it. "You're going to read the whole thing before class?" he asked, sitting in a chair across from her. It definitely wasn't as comfortable as he imagined the other one was.
She barely looked up. "I already read the whole book. I just wanted to review it all before tomorrow. I heard from the older students that Professor McGonagall is really tough."
Harry swallowed hard. Maybe he shouldn't have sat down to talk to her. He was pretty sure Ron hadn't even read the title of their books, much less cracked it to prepare. "Have you read all our books already?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.
Finally she stopped reading and looked him over. He was pretty sure she just now realized who she was talking to. She sat back and the mild panic that appeared to be pushing her to read was set aside. "When I first got my letter, my parents weren't very keen on the idea. They thought I should study hard to practice law or medicine. They didn't think it was a good idea to set aside my muggle education to study magic. They had a lot of questions. Professor McGonagall answered all of them by owl. They found out there were solicitors and healers in the wizarding world. That put an end to it. But now. Now I need to learn everything I can. Primary school didn't really prepare us for all of this did it? Maybe arithmancy. But we won't start that until third year."
There was so much information coming at Harry and in such rapid fire, he had a hard time keeping up. She could probably benefit from a good night's sleep just to make her mind stop. Then again, she probably dreamed about the things she was reading. "Is that what you want to do? Practice law or medicine?" He'd never given his future career much thought. Mostly because the Dursley's seemed to think he was destined to a life of vagrancy or crime. Anything other than that would be an improvement.
Hermione chewed on her lip. "I don't know," she said hesitantly. Like no one had asked her what she wanted to do. "I guess we have to wait to see what we're good at. It all comes down to our exams in our fifth and seventh year."
"Well. At least we've got some time," he joked.
She didn't laugh. "Harry, we have to start now. Every lessons builds on the next. If we don't master simple transfigurations now, we'll never learn how to do the advanced spells. The first year might be the most important."
The panic seemed to be taking over her again. Harry didn't know what it was like to have so much pressure and outside expectations on a person. He wasn't sure it was any better than his life with exactly zero expectations. He pulled out his book and opened the first chapter.
Hermione slid her chair closer to him. "Here. The transfiguration alphabet. See that's the first lesson. If we don't learn this, everything else will be impossible."
As she explained each symbol to him, its origins, its name, and when one would most like come across it, Harry realized he was attending his first class at Hogwarts. He also noticed her efforts to teach him were taking the edge off her anxiety. Either because she was able to channel it to help him or simply because it was reassuring her that she knew more than she thought, Harry didn't mind. She had a way of explaining things that made sense to him. And she never made him feel stupid when he got something wrong. After about an hour of practicing with some flash cards she had made, he was surprised to find he had the alphabet memorized.
"See," she concluded her lesson, shuffling her cards. "It's not so bad. We'll be working on that all week."
He had to agree. It hadn't been so bad. At least he wouldn't be entirely clueless in transfigurations. He smiled at her and stood. "It's not so bad. Thank you. Maybe we can study again sometime?"
She smiled back and handed him her stack of flashcards. "That'd be nice," she said and stuck her nose back in her book.
He took the cards gratefully, headed for the stairs and turned back. "You should get some sleep. I bet you know more than any other first year here."
Sitting a little straighter in her chair, Hermione closed her book and stood. "A couple of hours wouldn't hurt. Thanks for studying with me. I've never been very good at making friends."
"I've never had a friend," he told her and watched her head up the stairs to the girls dormitory. Between her and Ron, he figured he had two more friends than when his day started. From zero to two felt like a big deal. It might not be a dream he was going to wake up from, but it was a fulfillment of dreams he had.